Egypt jails Al-Jazeera journalists up to 10 years

Egypt jails Al-Jazeera journalists up to 10 years

Egypt jails Al-Jazeera journalists up to 10 years

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 07:51 PM PDT

CAIRO: An Egyptian court yesterday sentenced three Al-Jazeera journalists including Australian Peter Greste to jail terms ranging from seven to 10 years after accusing them of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

Greste and Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy each got seven years, while producer Baher Mohamed received two sentences — one for seven years and another for three years.

The three were among 20 defendants in a trial that has triggered international outrage amid fears of growing media restrictions in Egypt.

Eleven defendants who were tried in absentia, including three foreign journalists, were given 10-year sentences.

Of the six defendants in custody along with the three journalists, four were sentenced to seven years and two were acquitted.

Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the authorities have been incensed by the Qatari network's coverage of their deadly crackdown on his supporters.

They consider Al-Jazeera to be the voice of Qatar, and accuse Doha of backing Morsi's Brotherhood, while the emirate openly denounces the repression of the Islamist movement's supporters which has killed more than 1,400 people.

Greste, Fahmy and Mohamed have been in custody for nearly  six months, along with six others.

Al-Jazeera says only nine of the 20 defendants are on its staff, including two foreign reporters who are abroad.

Dutch woman journalist Rena Netjes, not with the satellite channel, was among the defendants sentenced in absentia to 10 years.

Sixteen defendants are Egyptians who were accused of belonging to the Brotherhood, which the authorities designated a "terrorist organisation" in December.

The four foreigners were also alleged to have collaborated with and assisted their Egyptian co-defendants by providing media material, as well as editing and broadcasting it.

The authorities also say the accused journalists were operating without valid accreditation.

"On June 23, the entire world will be watching Egypt to see whether they uphold the values of press freedom," Al-Jazeera had said ahead of yesterday's hearing.

On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry also called for freedom of the press to be upheld in Egypt as he made a surprise visit to Cairo.

Kerry said he discussed with Egyptian officials "the essential role of a vibrant civil society, free press, rule of law and due process in a democracy".

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said yesterday he had spoken to Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over the weekend.

"I assured him, as a former journalist myself, that Peter Greste would have been reporting the Muslim Brotherhood, not supporting the Muslim Brotherhood," Abbott told the Seven Network.

Sisi, who was sworn in as president on June 8, has said he intends to return Egypt to stability rather than encourage democratic reforms.

Prosecutors had demanded the maximum penalty for all defendants, which meant the 16 Egyptians could have been jailed for 25 years and the foreigners for 15 years.

Since the trial began on Feb 20, rights groups have expressed concerns over media restrictions in Egypt.

"What the Egyptian authorities are doing is vindictive persecution of journalists for merely doing their jobs," said Amnesty International.

During hearings the defendants denounced the trial as "unfair and political", charging that evidence had been "fabricated".

Prosecutors showed video from a tourism report not even produced by Al-Jazeera, as well as images and audio recordings in which the defendants were alleged to have falsely portrayed a "civil war".

Greste and Fahmy were arrested in a hotel room in Cairo on Dec 29 after the channel's office was raided by police.

Greste formerly worked with the BBC and won the 2011 Peabody Award for a documentary on Somalia.

Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al-Jazeera English who previously worked with CNN, has no known Brotherhood ties. — AFP

Print Friendly

Online deluge washes away China ‘piggyback’ official

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 07:48 PM PDT

BEIJING: A Chinese official who tried to save his shoes by taking a piggyback during a flood has lost his job instead, reports said yesterday, the latest example of Internet users holding bureaucrats to account.

It is the second time in a year that a ruling Communist Party official has been sacked after photos showed him riding on another person through a flooded area.

The incident took place during a search for three primary schoolchildren who had fallen into a river in the central province of Jiangxi, the official Xinhua news agency said.

A low-level staffer offered to give the official — the vice-director of a government office in Guixi who was identified only by his surname, Wang — a lift across an area ankle-deep in water, Xinhua said.

A photo of the episode went viral on China's popular online social networks soon afterwards, showing Wang clinging to the back of the staffer who was also carrying a black briefcase.

It triggered widespread outrage.

"The students are missing, and still he's trying to save his damn shoes? And this kind of scumbag can become a government official?" one user wrote yesterday on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter equivalent. — AFP

Print Friendly

Australian govt ‘appalled’ at verdict against Greste

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 07:48 PM PDT

SYDNEY: Australia yesterday said it was "appalled" at the jail term given to Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste by an Egyptian court, saying it undermined Cairo's claim to be transitioning to democracy.

"The Australian government is shocked at the verdict," said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop of the seven-year sentence imposed on the Australian for aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

"We are deeply dismayed that a sentence has been imposed and appalled at the severity of it.

"It is hard to credit that the court in this case could have reached this conclusion," she added.

"The Australian government simply cannot understand it based on the evidence that was presented in the case."

Greste's Al Jazeera colleague, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, was also sentenced to seven years, while producer Baher Mohamed received two sentences — one for seven years and another for three years They were accused of "spreading false news".

The three were among 20 defendants in a trial that has triggered international outrage amid fears of growing media restrictions in Egypt.

The severe sentence came despite Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaking to Egypt's new leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi over the weekend.

Abbott said he had been encouraged about their conversation on Greste.

Bishop said the verdict did nothing to support claims that the new administration was moving towards democracy.

"We understand Egypt has been through some very difficult times and a great deal of turmoil," she said. "But this kind of verdict does nothing to support claims to be transitioning to democracy.

"The Australian government urges the Egyptian government to reflect on what message is being sent to the world."

Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the authorities in Egypt have been incensed by the Qatari network's coverage of their deadly crackdown on his supporters.

They consider Al-Jazeera to be the voice of Qatar, and accuse Doha of backing Morsi's Brotherhood, while the emirate openly denounces the repression of the Islamist movement's supporters which has killed more than 1,400 people. — AFP

Print Friendly

Thai ex-lawmakers vow ‘fightback’ against coup

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 06:55 PM PDT

The former president of the toppled Thai ruling party on Tuesday launched the first official opposition group to the nation's coup-making junta, bidding to draw together dissidents within the country and outside its borders.

Jarupong Ruangsuwan, who was president of the Puea Thai party as well as a senior minister, will lead the "Organistation of Free Thais for Human Rights and Democracy" from self-exile in an unnamed country, according to a declaration marking the group's founding.

Thailand's junta has muzzled dissent within the country, summoning and detaining hundreds of people, the majority linked with the deposed government of ex-premier Yingluck Shinawatra and her administration's "Red Shirt" supporters.

In a statement by the group signed by Jarupong, and seen by AFP, he decried the coup as "grand larceny".

"The junta has violated the rule of law, abused democratic principles, and destroyed your rights, liberties, and human dignity," he said.

The group will fight to restore democracy and resist any moves by the establishment-backed junta to rig the political system in its favour, he added.

A coalition of former lawmakers, academics, Red Shirt figures and other opponents of the May 22 army power grab, have also joined the group — which will be based outside of Thailand in an unnamed country.

"The people are demanding a fightback," group spokesman Jakrapob Penkair, a former government minister and founding member of the Red Shirt movement, told AFP via Skype from London on Monday.

"We will provide psychological support for all anti-coup, democratic groups inside and outside Thailand. We will provide assistance and encouragement to all demonstrators against the coup… but not of the violent kind."

"This is just the start," he said, adding the billionaire former premier and Red Shirt hero Thaksin Shinawatra had not joined the group.

Thailand has suffered a political rupture since Thaksin, Yingluck's older brother, swept to power in 2001 on a wave of support from the nation's rural, poor north and northeast.

The Shinawatras' electoral success sent panic through the Bangkok-based royalist elite — and its supporters in the military — who accuse the family of abusing democracy to sponsor massive graft and cronyism.

Thaksin was deposed in a 2006 coup and lives in self-exile to avoid jail for a corruption conviction, although his political affiliates have continued to sweep the polls.

His sister was deposed by a controversial court order shortly before May's coup, which the army said was necessary to restore order following several months of sometimes-deadly street protests in Bangkok.

Coup-leading Army Chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha has smothered dissent, imposing sweeping controls of the media and detaining or warning hundreds of people to aver protest and political action.

Thai police on Monday offered a $15 reward to anyone providing photographic or video evidence to help convict anti-coup protesters who have gathered in small but increasingly creative flashmobs.

In the latest strike on freedom of expression, a lone man reading George Orwell's anti-authoritarian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was arrested on Sunday. -AFP

Print Friendly

World war ii bomb found, detonated in Tawau

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 06:30 PM PDT

Posted on June 24, 2014, Tuesday

TAWAU: A construction worker stumbled upon an old bomb, believed to be from the World War II era, while clearing an area at the Hill Top Specialist Hospital construction site here yesterday.

Tawau police chief ACP Awang Besar Dullah said the worker found the bomb at 1.45 pm and showed it to the site manager who later alerted the police.

The 13-inch bomb has a shape of a bullet with 21-inch diametre and weighs about 30 kilogramme, he said in a statement here today.

The bomb was safely detonated by a bomb disposal squad at 4.38 pm. — BERNAMA

Print Friendly

We encourage commenting on our stories to give readers a chance to express their opinions; please refrain from vulgar language, insidious, seditious or slanderous remarks. While the comments here reflect the views of the readers, they are not necessarily that of Borneo Post Online. Borneo Post Online reserves the right not to publish or to remove comments that are offensive or volatile. Please read the Commenting Rules.

Google Internet eyewear heads for Britain

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 05:21 PM PDT

Google on Monday made Glass available in Britain to early adopters willing to spend 1,000 pounds for a chance to dabble with the Internet-linked eyewear.

The California-based technology titan expanded an "explorer" program beyond the United States for the first time by inviting British enthusiasts to virtually queue for the gadget online at google.co.uk/glass.

"Probably the question we've heard more than any other is: when will Glass be available outside the US?" the Glass team said in a post on its Google+ social network page.

"Well, we're starting out by dipping our toes across the pond."

The eyewear — hotly anticipated by some, feared by others — became available in the United States in May to anyone with $1,500 to spare and a desire to become an "explorer."

The decision to open the Glass test, or beta, program in the US came about a month after a one-day sale of the eyewear to the public.

In a possible sign of interest, the Glass page on the Google+ network has more than 736,000 followers and has been viewed more than 114 million times.

Early this year, Google joined forces with the frame giant behind Ray-Ban and other high-end brands to create and sell Glass eyewear in the United States.

The partnership with Luxottica was portrayed as Google's "biggest step yet into the emerging smart eyewear market."

Luxottica brands include Oakley, Alain Mikli, Ray-Ban and Vogue-Eyewear.

The first smart glasses by Luxottica for Google Glass will go on sale in 2015, according to the Italian eyewear group.

Google has been working to burnish the image of Glass, which has triggered concerns about privacy since the devices are capable of capturing pictures and video.

During the Explorer testing phase, developers are creating apps for Google Glass, which can range from getting weather reports to sharing videos to playing games.

Glass connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi hot spots or, more typically, by being wirelessly tethered to mobile phones. Pictures or video may be shared through the Google Plus social network. -AFP

Print Friendly