23 June 2014
The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) today [23 June 2014] protested the sentencing of three journalists working for Al Jazeera English in Egypt.
The guilty verdicts were announced on Monday 23 June in a court in Cairo. The journalists – Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed – had been charged with aiding the Muslim Brotherhood and reporting false news. Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison. Baher Mohamed was sentenced to a total of ten years in prison.
The prosecution alleged that Greste, Al Jazeera’s East Africa correspondent, and his two colleagues from the Network’s Egypt bureau, aided the Brotherhood and produced false news reports about events in Egypt. All three journalists vehemently denied the charges. The prosecution produced a range of items as evidence that were completely unrelated to the charges, including a BBC podcast, a news report produced when none of the three accused was in Egypt and a pop video by Gotye, an Australian singer.
“AIB and its members have been shocked by both the verdicts and the sentencing in this case. The case against the journalists was repeatedly demonstrated to be flawed. This Association joins the international call for the case to be reviewed immediately and the journalists released,” said Simon Spanswick, AIB Chief Executive. “Not a single piece of evidence was found to support the charges against them in a court case that at times bordered on the farcical. AIB calls on the Egyptian authorities to release the three Al Jazeera journalists and start an immediate, thorough and transparent review of the case to restore some level of international trust in Egypt’s justice system.”
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23 June 2014
The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) today [23 June 2014] protested the sentencing of three journalists working for Al Jazeera English in Egypt.
The guilty verdicts were announced on Monday 23 June in a court in Cairo. The journalists – Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed – had been charged with aiding the Muslim Brotherhood and reporting false news. Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison. Baher Mohamed was sentenced to a total of ten years in prison.
The prosecution alleged that Greste, Al Jazeera’s East Africa correspondent, and his two colleagues from the Network’s Egypt bureau, aided the Brotherhood and produced false news reports about events in Egypt. All three journalists vehemently denied the charges. The prosecution produced a range of items as evidence that were completely unrelated to the charges, including a BBC podcast, a news report produced when none of the three accused was in Egypt and a pop video by Gotye, an Australian singer.
“AIB and its members have been shocked by both the verdicts and the sentencing in this case. The case against the journalists was repeatedly demonstrated to be flawed. This Association joins the international call for the case to be reviewed immediately and the journalists released,” said Simon Spanswick, AIB Chief Executive. “Not a single piece of evidence was found to support the charges against them in a court case that at times bordered on the farcical. AIB calls on the Egyptian authorities to release the three Al Jazeera journalists and start an immediate, thorough and transparent review of the case to restore some level of international trust in Egypt’s justice system.”
Al Anstey, Al Jazeera English managing director, said the verdicts defied “logic, sense, and any semblance of justice”.
“Today three colleagues and friends were sentenced, and will continue to be kept behind bars for doing a brilliant job of being great journalists. ‘Guilty’ of covering stories with great skill and integrity. ‘Guilty’ of defending people’s right to know what is going on in their world,” Anstey said in a statement.
Context about the journalists [source: BBC Monitoring]
Peter Greste
Australian journalist Peter Greste, 48, worked for a number of news organizations including Reuters and the BBC before joining Al Jazeera’s team.
An experienced correspondent, Greste started out reporting on Bosnia and South Africa and then moved on to cover Afghanistan, Mexico, and the Middle East. He was the BBC’s Kabul correspondent in 1995, where he watched the Taleban emerge, and he returned after the Taleban lost control of the capital in 2001.He has lived in Nairobi, Kenya since 2009 where he has covered Horn of Africa countries with a particular focus on Somalia. His documentary Somalia: Land of Anarchy won a Peabody award in 2011.
His story on the relationship between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise inspired a best-selling children’s book, Owen & Mzee [pictured right].
Greste has written open letters from Tora Prison expressing his frustration at being locked up on charges of falsifying news and damaging Egypt’s reputation. “After more than 20 years as a foreign correspondent, I know what is safe ground. And we didn’t stray anywhere near that edge,” he wrote a month into his incarceration.
He says that the “new normal” in Egypt has shifted so far from the middle ground that routine journalists’ work suddenly appears threatening. “How do you accurately and fairly report on Egypt’s ongoing political struggle without talking to everyone involved?” he asked.
Mohamed Fahmy
Al-Jazeera English’s bureau chief in Cairo, Mohamed Fahmy, 40, was born in Egypt but moved to Canada with his family in the early 1990s.
He is known for his keen professional interest in the Middle East and North Africa and has extensively reported on events there for other major news outlets such as CNN and the New York Times. Mr Fahmy is also the author of “Egyptian Freedom Story”, an account of the 2011 revolution that led to the fall of the regime of the then President Hosni Mubarak. In May 2014, the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom honoured the journalist with its annual award.
In a letter smuggled out of his prison cell, Mohamed Fahmy said that “A key part of our defence has been to convince the judge of our professional integrity; to prove to him that we are journalists striving for the truth; and not agents of terror. This award will go a long way toward making our case.”
Some prominent figures in Egypt have voiced their support for the journalist. Among them is former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who wrote to the court saying that Mohamed Fahmy was “known as competent, has integrity and is objective”.
Baher Mohamed
Al-Jazeera producer Baher Mohamed, 30, has worked for various international media in Egypt since he graduated from Cairo University in 2005.
He was with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper from 2008 to 2013, and did freelance reporting for CNN and Iran’s English-language Press TV. Baher Mohamed joined Al Jazeera English in May 2013 and covered the protests in Cairo that started on 30 June and led to the ousting of the country’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
According to transcripts from Baher Mohamed’s interrogations by the prosecution, published in Egypt’s al-Ahram daily, the journalist said that his father was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and made him go to religious classes organised by the Islamists.
Baher Mohamed is quoted as saying that he refused to attend them as they were “boring”.
23 June 2014
Intelsat S.A., a leading provider of satellite services, and Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd., a worldwide leader in satellite networking technology, solutions and services, today announced a multi-year, multi-transponder agreement under which Gilat Colombia will use Intelsat Ku-band capacity on Intelsat 907 at 332.5° East to support the Kioscos Vive Digital 2 (KVDII) project.
KDVII provides connectivity to rural communities and schools in six regions within the framework of the Colombian Ministry’s national Kioscos Phase 2/VIVE DIGITAL project. Gilat’s SkyEdge II WebEnhance was chosen to be used in four of these, including the regions serviced by Gilat Colombia. Under the agreement between the companies, Gilat Colombia will use Intelsat’s satellite services for the three year initiative. As part of the project, Gilat will integrate its SkyEdge II WebEnhance data networking platform with Intelsat’s satellite services to provide internet connectivity to 1,903 kiosks within rural communities located in Colombia.
“Satellite continues to provide critical broadband infrastructure to regions where terrestrial technologies are not cost-effective or are unreliable or impossible to use given geographies,” said Carmen Gonzalez-Sanfeliu, Intelsat’s Regional Vice President, Latin America. “Gilat’s high-performing and efficient technology combined with Intelsat’s flexible and high-performing satellite services closes that divide and delivers essential internet connectivity and telephony to children and adults in communities across Colombia. The KVDII project is a great example of how the satellite community works together to provide the necessary connectivity to aid in the educational and economic development of fast growing economies, such as Colombia.”
“We have had a long and successful history of partnering with Intelsat to deliver broadband connectivity in some of the remotest regions of the world,” stated Danny Fridman, CEO of Gilat Colombia and Peru “The quality, flexibility and reliability of their satellite fleet and willingness to reposition the Intelsat 907 spot beam to help us deliver the internet to communities in Colombia made them the best partner to help support our efforts with the KVDII initiative.”
About Kioscos VIVE Digital
Kioscos VIVE Digital is an initiative of the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications which aims to provide community Internet access points to 100% of the population centers of more than 100 people, by 2014. The project is focused on rural areas and remote locations as part of the aim to achieve digital inclusion of children, youth and adults of all ages. www.intelsat.com.
19 June 2014
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović today told participating States that events in Ukraine pose a great threat to media freedom and free expression across the OSCE region.
“I ask for all the parties involved to show some modicum of restraint and respect for the fundamental values of free media and make democracy and civilized society work,” Mijatović said while presenting her semi-annual report to the Permanent Council.
“At the end of the day, there’s no more effective way to restrict free media, free expression and the free flow of information than resorting to physical and emotional violence and threats of violence against members of the media. And since the beginning of the Maidan demonstrations there figuratively has been a tide of violence perpetrated against members of the media,” she said.
During her presentation Mijatović said that four journalists had been killed since the conflict in Ukraine began and that countless others had been assaulted physically and emotionally. She said she had intervened about 120 times throughout the OSCE region to defend the rights to free expression and free media since the Representative’s last regular report in November, often connected to the backsliding of journalists’ rights in some participating States.
“The work of my Office will not slow down. It is my mandate to bring information to you on media violations in all countries. The issues at stake in Ukraine are central to the issues of free media and free expression across the entire OSCE region and they have my full attention,” Mijatović told the Permanent Council.
Mijatović pointed to some bright spots in the media landscape in the OSCE region since her last report, including the co-operation between her office and participating States on good-faith efforts to adopt legal regimes beneficial to free media, and training events organized by her office for journalists, government officials and law enforcement officers on central media freedom issues.
“Too many nations around the world know that, like democracy, free media and free speech do not come naturally and cannot be taken for granted. They must be constantly justified, reaffirmed and strengthened. That is the reason why the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media was created and what the Organization must consider in order to make sure it functions properly and professionally in carrying out the mission,” Mijatović said.
The report to the Permanent Council is available at www.osce.org/fom/119957
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media observes media developments in all 57 OSCE participating States. She provides early warning on violations of freedom of expression and media freedom and promotes full compliance with OSCE media freedom commitments. Learn more at www.osce.org/fom, Twitter: @OSCE_RFoM and on facebook.com/osce.rfom.
19 June 2014
Afghan President General Hamid Karzai has spoken exclusively to BBC’s Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet about the Taliban and the latest developments in Iraq.
Doucet – a past winner of the AIB’s International Personality of the Year award – was granted an exclusive interview that covered a range of areas as Western troops prepare to leave Afghanistan.
Watch the entire interview at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-27897644.
19 June 2014
Channel NewsAsia has launched a nation-wide school competition – Days of Rage – Digital Media Competition. The competition, a collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Student Development Curriculum Division, is held from end May 2014 as part of efforts to celebrate Singapore’s 50th year of independence in 2015.
Students from various institutions in Singapore are invited to create a video based on themes and characters seen in the channel’s highly acclaimed series, Days of Rage. Entries should show how one key character featured in the Days of Rage programme would act in today’s context, and the impact it could have on the community.
The 5-part series was first telecast on the channel from January 2014, and the adapted versions in Chinese, Malay and Tamil were subsequently shown on the respective MediaCorp mass entertainment channels. Vice President of International Productions at Channel NewsAsia Network Programming and Promotions, Ms Mok Choy Lin, says, “Days of Rage is one of our top notch documentary programmes that has been very well received from all quarters since it was first telecast. Shot with some of the highest production values, it is not only very entertaining as a TV programme, but historically instructive as well. The Ministry of Education has found the series useful in educating the youths about Singapore’s History and we want to use it to kindle interest among the young about the iconic moments in Singapore’s past and to stimulate thought on some of the events and issues. We are also planning an encore telecast of the series from 1st July 2014.”
The competition is open to all secondary school, Junior College, ITE and Polytechnic students and deadline for submission is end July. The winning entry will win a cash prize of S$1,000 and will be showcased on the Days of Rage microsite on channelnewsasia.com. (Source: Press release)
