Egypt

Not Abandoned: #FreeShawkan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

August 14, 2013, was 994 days ago. On that date, Mahmoud Abu Zeid was arrested in Egypt. He is a photojournalist who was arrested while being a photographer. Four times since December of last year, his first court hearing has been postponed; the next attempt at a hearing will come on May 10.

Under Egyptian law, there is a two-year cap on pre-trial detention; 994 days is longer than two years.

You may very well have seen some of his work in recent years, as his photographs have appeared in Time magazine, in periodicals throughout Europe, and they have been distributed by Corbis, a major syndicate. (One photo is reprinted below the fold.) Mahmoud, who publishes under the name “Shawkan,” photographed everyday life in Egypt as well as breaking news stories like the protests in Tahrir Square and the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Today is World Press Freedom Day, an annual commemoration established by the United Nations in December 1993. It celebrates the vital importance of a free press around the world, of the importance of the freedom of expression. What I write here is not important, but the fact that I can hit the “Publish” button in a few moments and send this into the world, that fact is.
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A New Delay for Shawkan Zeid

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATE, February 6, 2016: For a second time, the Egyptian court hearing for Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the photojournalist known as “Shawkan,” has been postponed, this time until March 26. The court cited the same reason it gave for the first postponement in December: that it does not have the space to accommodate the hearing. Because he was arrested in a widespread government crackdown, which was known as the “Rabaa Dispersal,” Shawkan has been included with 737 other individuals. All face similar charges of offenses against public order and national security, violence, murder, attacking security forces and civilians, engaging in armed conflicts, and destroying public facilities.

Multiple sources are reporting today that Shawkan has been moved to a “disciplinary cell,” in other words, solitary confinement. His social media accounts describe a tiny cell, a daily slice of bread, a bucket, no blanket. There is a disgusting irony in placing him in a small cell for any length of time, whether one hour or until March 26, when the reason for the two delays has been lack of space.
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A Farce in Egypt

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The judge “bellowed” the verdict against the three journalists today, according to reports. He announced that the three were found guilty and sentenced them to three years in jail. Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed, and Peter Greste already spent more than 400 days in prison in Egypt after being arrested for “spreading false news” while working for al-Jazeera English.

The three have already been convicted, retried, acquitted, retried again. Greste, an Australian, was deported last year.

Judge Hassan Farid declared today that the court had determined that the defendants are not journalists as they are not members of Egypt’s “Journalists Syndicate,” nor had they registered with a national agency that grants foreign reporters permits to work in the country. Thus, since they are not officially journalists, they were working against the government. They had been convicted in a first trial in 2014, sentenced to seven years in prison each, retried, acquitted, retried again, and convicted again today. Another retrial is being worked on but the earliest it can start is 2016.
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