Al-Jazeera journalists jailed for airing 'false news', Egyptian court ruling says

The Guardian ^ | 9/6/2015

[Beave Meister]

An Egyptian court released a detailed ruling on Sunday on why it sentenced three journalists working for al-Jazeera English to three years in prison for airing what it described as “false news” and biased coverage. The case has long been criticised by press freedom campaigners and others.

The ruling, published by the state news agency Mena, said Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian national, Peter Greste, an Australian journalist, and BaherMohamed, an Egyptian producer, were by default members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, which Egyptian authorities consider a terrorist organisation.

“It has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the al-Jazeera media channel has dedicated its broadcasting to the service and support of the Muslim Brotherhood faction and that they have permanently sided with them at the expense of their media ethics,” the ruling said. “This provides enough ground for a conviction of belonging to a group based on violations of the law.”

[Beave Meister]

They could never implement that here. Making it a crime to report false news and biased reporting would force every employee at the New York Times into hiding. Our jails are already too crowded.....This would push them to the limits.

[Mears]

Good for Egypt.

Biased reporting is unfamiliar to us here in the USA. /s

.

[Beave Meister]

The NYT will soon be closing all operations in Egypt until further notice.

[huldah1776]

Should be policy that since we don’t negotiate with terrorists...oh, wait, scratch that.

[huldah1776]

come to think of it, Al Gore and Al Gazeera had pretty close ties there...what was going on during that vice presidency?

[SunkenCiv]

Pwned.