{"id":14381,"date":"2018-01-14T20:32:01","date_gmt":"2018-01-14T18:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afteegypt.org?p=14381"},"modified":"2018-01-14T20:45:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T18:45:23","slug":"letter-to-national-council-for-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afteegypt.org\/en\/detained-journalists-section\/letters\/2018\/01\/14\/14381-afteegypt.html","title":{"rendered":"Letter to National Council for Human Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
January 2018<\/p>\n
Mr. Mohamed Fayak<\/p>\n
Head of the National Council for Human Rights<\/p>\n
69 Giza street, next to the Saudi embassy<\/p>\n
Giza<\/p>\n
Subject: Situation of imprisoned journalists in Egypt.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) is writing to you to inform you of the situation of imprisoned journalists in Egypt, demanding that you seek to ensure the freedom of those journalists, who are harshly treated by the authorities for carrying out their journalistic profession. AFTE hopes that you will ensure the right of every journalist to work freely without restriction of personal freedom or threat to his\/her physical safety.<\/p>\n
AFTE is a group of lawyers and researchers, registered as an Egyptian legal entity since 2006 that works in the defense of freedom of expression and promotion of freedom of exchange of information.<\/p>\n
There are various violations against journalists, notably arbitrary arrest, which is one of the frequent patterns of violations monitored<\/a> and documented by many human rights institutions in recent years, as well as was indicated<\/a> by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in one of his speeches, where he called for a revision of cases of imprisoned students. Journalists<\/a> are among the groups that have been subjected to random arrests on many occasions.<\/p>\n We also wish to inform you that journalists are directly targeted by security authorities, and the most vulnerable categories of journalists are photojournalists. Journalists are also directly targeted against the background of investigative reports, as was the case with journalist Ismail Al-Iskandarani, currently in precautionary detention<\/a>, because of his press reports on the situation in North Sinai. A number of journalists and media workers are now behind bars in the Raba\u2019a operation room, Mekamelin 1 and 2 cases, which constitutes targeting media workers that the state considers to be undermining security and stability. Among them is Mahmoud Hussein, who is being held in custody in case No. 11152 for the year 2016, because of his work as a news producer in the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel.<\/p>\n In addition, investigating bodies use precautionary detention as a punishment<\/a> in itself and not a precautionary measure, since most arrested journalists are subjected to long period of precautionary detention, extending beyond the maximum duration of two years before referral to trial. There are in fact cases of journalists who spent a long period of precautionary detention, some of which extended beyond a year, before their innocence was proved or were released pending trials, including journalists Ahmed Gamal Ziada who spent<\/a> 500 days in precautionary detention before the court acquitted him in the case known the media as \u201cAl-Azhar university events\u201d in December 2013.<\/p>\n