Al Jazeera’s campaign to pressure Egypt into releasing three of its employees has been successful in as much as it has kept their plight alive and galvanised its media colleagues and western politicians. But it has not had an impact on the people who matter most — judges who delivered seven and ten-year sentences. And neither has it strong-armed President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi to interfere in the judicial process.
And here’s why: Firstly, despite the Qatari network’s relentless propaganda, Egypt’s judiciary is fiercely independent. Secondly, Egyptians are fed up of outside powers issuing diktats as they did during the Hosni Mubarak era. And lastly, Al Sissi is precluded from issuing pardons until after the legal process has taken its course, even if he were so disposed.
The irony is that people of influence like US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Prime Minister David Cameron have urged Al Sissi to ensure the trio’s immediate release hinting at consequences on the one hand, while at the same time pressing Cairo to abide by its new constitution and uphold democratic values, which are mutually exclusive demands. Imagine the scandal if either Obama or Cameron tried to sway American or British judges or, heaven forbid, attempted to snatch defendants from under a judge’s nose. Playing heavy with Egypt is not in the interests of US/UK foreign policy at a time when Cairo is reaching out to new geopolitical partners. And more, it is detrimental to the journalists concerned because the more the Egyptian government is threatened the more it is likely to dig in its heels, especially since it is backed by the majority of Egyptians who view Al Jazeera as an enemy of the state.
The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, appears to have got the message. While expressing “shock,” “dismay” and bewilderment at the sentencing, he says he will not be engaging in “unhelpful megaphone diplomacy,” explaining: “That won’t do Peter Greste any good; it won’t do his two Al Jazeera colleagues any good.”
On this particular issue (and others relating to Egypt), Al Jazeera has behaved more like an advocacy organisation than a news outlet, whipping up global hysteria with the tag line ‘Journalism is not a crime.’ I do know this. Those journalists entered the country illegally. They wrote ‘businessman’ on their immigration landing cards and operated secretly from a room in the Marriott Hotel without accreditation. They arrived knowing full well that Al Jazeera’s Cairo offices had been closed down by the authorities and the channel banned from operating in the country. As journalists, they cannot claim not to know the risks they took in a country that is virulently hostile to Al Jazeera after the network was discovered fabricating scenarios and using airtime to organise pro-Muslim Brotherhood protests.
Unfortunately, the majority of those who have joined Al Jazeera’s Twitter campaign have received a distorted, one-sided story, that has been staunchly backed by western media, behaving more like a pressure group or a de facto union than people tasked with providing fair and balanced context. They claim that Al Jazeera was right to have contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood so that they could provide their viewers with the other side of the coin. But, on this, the media has adopted a single line: poor, innocent, award-winning journalists, banged up for merely doing their jobs in a professional manner with no mention that they snuck into Egypt on false pretences.
The media has now ganged up, as evidenced by a letter to Al Sissi, signed by the head honchos of BBC, ITN, ITV, Sky News, Channel Four and others, lecturing him on freedom of speech and the importance of “critical voices,” while appealing to him to set Peter Greste and the others free. Well, all you holier-than-thou signatories, this is exactly what I am doing now—criticising you for your lack of impartiality and a stance that screams cronyism. You do, of course, realise that the three countries topping the global list for the jailing of journalists are Iran, China and Turkey. What no tape over the mouth for those! No one-minute silences! Do you even know their names? No finger wagging from Kerry! No, of course. On the contrary, Kerry is getting cozy with Tehran over Iraq. The Chinese premier was recently hosted by the British queen and NATO member Turkey gets a free pass.
What really gets me inwardly groaning is the media’s sheer hypocrisy. Al Jazeera’s anchors can hardly contain their glee when Kerry gives Cairo a ticking-off. Are they suffering from amnesia? Have they forgotten that the US bombed their offices in Baghdad and Kabul? Has it slipped their minds that their colleague Sami Al Haj was detained for six years in Guantanamo without charge or trial? Or that former Kabul bureau Chief Tayseer Allouni was imprisoned in Spain at Washington’s behest on trumped-up terror charges? The way the network has duped its viewers and media colleagues to form a cacophony of anti-Egypt rumblings amounts to an Orwellian masterstroke. You could not make it up!
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.
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Narrative on jailing of journalists one-sided
Posted on July 2, 2014 by Linda S. Heard
Al Jazeera’s campaign to pressure Egypt into releasing three of its employees has been successful in as much as it has kept their plight alive and galvanised its media colleagues and western politicians. But it has not had an impact on the people who matter most — judges who delivered seven and ten-year sentences. And neither has it strong-armed President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi to interfere in the judicial process.
And here’s why: Firstly, despite the Qatari network’s relentless propaganda, Egypt’s judiciary is fiercely independent. Secondly, Egyptians are fed up of outside powers issuing diktats as they did during the Hosni Mubarak era. And lastly, Al Sissi is precluded from issuing pardons until after the legal process has taken its course, even if he were so disposed.
The irony is that people of influence like US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Prime Minister David Cameron have urged Al Sissi to ensure the trio’s immediate release hinting at consequences on the one hand, while at the same time pressing Cairo to abide by its new constitution and uphold democratic values, which are mutually exclusive demands. Imagine the scandal if either Obama or Cameron tried to sway American or British judges or, heaven forbid, attempted to snatch defendants from under a judge’s nose. Playing heavy with Egypt is not in the interests of US/UK foreign policy at a time when Cairo is reaching out to new geopolitical partners. And more, it is detrimental to the journalists concerned because the more the Egyptian government is threatened the more it is likely to dig in its heels, especially since it is backed by the majority of Egyptians who view Al Jazeera as an enemy of the state.
The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, appears to have got the message. While expressing “shock,” “dismay” and bewilderment at the sentencing, he says he will not be engaging in “unhelpful megaphone diplomacy,” explaining: “That won’t do Peter Greste any good; it won’t do his two Al Jazeera colleagues any good.”
On this particular issue (and others relating to Egypt), Al Jazeera has behaved more like an advocacy organisation than a news outlet, whipping up global hysteria with the tag line ‘Journalism is not a crime.’ I do know this. Those journalists entered the country illegally. They wrote ‘businessman’ on their immigration landing cards and operated secretly from a room in the Marriott Hotel without accreditation. They arrived knowing full well that Al Jazeera’s Cairo offices had been closed down by the authorities and the channel banned from operating in the country. As journalists, they cannot claim not to know the risks they took in a country that is virulently hostile to Al Jazeera after the network was discovered fabricating scenarios and using airtime to organise pro-Muslim Brotherhood protests.
Unfortunately, the majority of those who have joined Al Jazeera’s Twitter campaign have received a distorted, one-sided story, that has been staunchly backed by western media, behaving more like a pressure group or a de facto union than people tasked with providing fair and balanced context. They claim that Al Jazeera was right to have contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood so that they could provide their viewers with the other side of the coin. But, on this, the media has adopted a single line: poor, innocent, award-winning journalists, banged up for merely doing their jobs in a professional manner with no mention that they snuck into Egypt on false pretences.
The media has now ganged up, as evidenced by a letter to Al Sissi, signed by the head honchos of BBC, ITN, ITV, Sky News, Channel Four and others, lecturing him on freedom of speech and the importance of “critical voices,” while appealing to him to set Peter Greste and the others free. Well, all you holier-than-thou signatories, this is exactly what I am doing now—criticising you for your lack of impartiality and a stance that screams cronyism. You do, of course, realise that the three countries topping the global list for the jailing of journalists are Iran, China and Turkey. What no tape over the mouth for those! No one-minute silences! Do you even know their names? No finger wagging from Kerry! No, of course. On the contrary, Kerry is getting cozy with Tehran over Iraq. The Chinese premier was recently hosted by the British queen and NATO member Turkey gets a free pass.
What really gets me inwardly groaning is the media’s sheer hypocrisy. Al Jazeera’s anchors can hardly contain their glee when Kerry gives Cairo a ticking-off. Are they suffering from amnesia? Have they forgotten that the US bombed their offices in Baghdad and Kabul? Has it slipped their minds that their colleague Sami Al Haj was detained for six years in Guantanamo without charge or trial? Or that former Kabul bureau Chief Tayseer Allouni was imprisoned in Spain at Washington’s behest on trumped-up terror charges? The way the network has duped its viewers and media colleagues to form a cacophony of anti-Egypt rumblings amounts to an Orwellian masterstroke. You could not make it up!
Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.