Non-government sanctioned media and critical news reports are frequently described as ‘false news’ in Egypt.
The fate of four Al Jazeera journalists detained in Egypt has been highlighted by top media rights organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which issued a statement to Egyptian authorities on Monday.
The report, published just days after Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited Cairo for the first time since the blockade, said the Al Jazeera journalists “have been paying for the political rivalry between the two countries for too long and have no place being in prison.”
“We reiterate our call for the release of the four Al Jazeera journalists imprisoned in Egypt,” said Sabrina Bennoui, the head of RSF’s Middle East department.
The journalists, Rabie El Sheikh, Ahmed El Nagdy, Bahaa Ed Din Ibrahim and Hesham Abdel Aziz have been detained preventively since August 2021, August 2020, February 2020 and June 2019 respectively on charges of “membership of a banned group” and “spreading false information.”
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera network was banned after President Abdelfattah El Sisi forcefully seized power from Egypt’s first democratically-elected President Mohammed Morsi in a military coup in 2013. He also outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood and launched a major and brutal crackdown on its members and supporters after capturing control.
Al Jazeera, which closed its offices after Egyptian security forces broke up demonstrations in Rabia and Al Nahda squares on 14 August 2013, began broadcasting once again in August 2021, after an eight year hiatus.
Egypt was among four countries, namely Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that imposed an illegal air, land and sea blockade on Qatar in 2017 over allegations that Doha had supported terrorism and was ‘too close‘ to Iran and Turkey.
The embargo had a massive impact across the board, with diplomatic ties broken, imports coming to a halt and nationals of all involved countries bearing the brunt of the political crisis.
However, the crisis came to an end in January 2021, when the Al Ula Declaration was signed to restore diplomatic and trade ties between Qatar and the blockading quartet.
Egypt and press repression
Rights groups have pointed their accusatory fingers at Sisi’s government for jailing tens of thousands of dissidents and outlawing virtually all forms of political opposition, describing it as part of a brutal campaign to silence critical journalists.
Egypt was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists on CPJ’s 2021 prison census, which found that the number of reporters jailed for their work hit a new global record of 293, up from a revised total of 280 in 2020.
Non-government sanctioned media and critical news reports are frequently described as ‘false news’ in Egypt.
Ahmed Taha, an Al Jazeera Media Network presenter was sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia by an Egyptian court for “spreading false news” during an interview with Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a leading opposition figure and former presidential candidate in 2018.
Taha slammed the court ruling as “lacking logic” and “shameful” for those who issued it, and that this decision does not reflect on him or his colleagues.
“This sentence is not against me; it’s against the Al Jazeera Network, against press freedom and journalists in Egypt,” Taha said in an interview with Al Jazeera in late May.
His sentencing comes months after Egypt’s National Strategy on Human Rights, a plan to address human rights violations in the country, was released.
Taha expressed his amusement regarding the ruling against him, saying: “How would you stand in front of the world and say: ‘I sentenced a TV presenter to 15 years because he hosted a public figure. How are they going to justify this?'”
Despite this, Cairo has denied holding political prisoners.
Warming Egypt- Qatar relations
Hours after the summit in Saudi Arabia’s Al Ula, Qatari Finance Minister Ali Al Emadi attended the inauguration of the St. Regis Hotel in Cairo – a $1.3 billion investment by the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company. This made Al Emadi the first Qatari minister to visit the Egyptian capital since June 2017.
In June 2021, Egypt’s Sisi named Amr El Sherbiny as the country’s envoy to Doha, seen at the time as a step towards rapid economic and diplomatic normalisation between the two countries.
More recently, Egypt’s state-run Al Ahram daily reported the talks held during Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim’s visit to Egypt last week were centred around ensuring the “full normalisation” of ties between the two nations after resuming relations early in 2021.
In March, Qatar announced it had struck investment agreements worth a combined $5 billion injected in Egypt’s economy, with “$3 billion deposited in the Central Bank of Egypt and $2 billion dollars for investment,” Egypt’s Finance Minister Mohamed Maait told Doha News in an exclusive interview at the sidelines of this year’s Qatar Economic Forum.