Egypt: Al Jazeera journalists 'to face charges'

There have been several journalists affiliated with Al Jazeera languishing in Egyptian jail cells since December, charged with conspiring with a terrorist group and for producing false news. The group includes Al Jazeera's Mohamed Fahmy, former BBC Correspondent Peter Greste and producer Baher Mohamed. The “terrorist group” with which they are charged with conspiring is the Muslim Brotherhood, which was labeled a terrorist organization by the Egyptian government last year. Part of the reason Egypt may fear conspiring between Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood is because Al Jazeera is primarily funded by the royal family of Qatar, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Jon Snow of Channel 4 News, based in the UK, interviewed Ambassador Salah Abdel Sadek, who wholeheartedly supports the charges levied against the journalists. He claims that they were unaccredited journalists working in hiding without permission from the Egyptian government. The Ambassador goes on to claim that the material being produced by the journalists was “maliciously edited and montaged to leave some wrong impression not reflecting the truth. And that - it is breaking the law". He says that the material was edited so that it "would make Egypt look like it is in civil war or that there is a crack within society".

The online report from Channel 4 News includes two video elements with other printed text. This combination of media do a good job at punctuating the text with videos to complement it. The article includes a video interview with Ambassador Salah Abdel Sadek, which was easier to glean information from than a text transcript might have been because the Ambassador’s mannerisms and inflections contain information that his words alone might not. Another thing I noticed about this report was that it focused primarily on the former BBC correspondent, Peter Greste, and much less on the other two. I do not recall seeing this event broadcast in popular news media in the United States, and I had never even heard about it until I read this article on Diigo. Perhaps this is an indication that I need to make myself more aware of world news and current events, but it could also be an example of selective reporting. If one of the journalists being charged and jailed in Egypt had been an American citizen, I would bet that it would be covered on CNN on a daily basis for weeks. I was surprised to learn that Egypt had jailed these journalists for essentially fabricated charges; I knew that Egypt had recently undergone what amounts to a military coup and that there was much civil unrest in the region. I also knew that for years the United States military has held an annual war games event with the Egyptian military to promote stability and confidence in the United States in the region. Reports from AJ, CNN, and Channel 4 News (based in UK) all report journalists charged with conspiring with a terrorist organization (the Muslim Brotherhood) and producing false news. Reports seem to be consistent across the board, even Daily News Egypt reports fairly accurately the state of affairs with the jailing of the journalists and protests thereof.

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