Johannesburg - The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) has called on President Jacob Zuma to urgently request the Egyptian government’s intervention in six Al Jazeera journalists’ trial, and to repeal the death sentence for three of them who were tried in absentia.
Sanef Chairman Adriaan Basson said on Wednesday that the organisation appealed to Zuma to take up this call to action in support of the ideals of a free press enshrined in the South African Constitution and in the African Union Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
The journalists who were tried in absentia and sentenced to death are former director of news at Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel, Ibrahim Mohammed Helal, former Al Jazeera producer Alaa Omar Mohammed Sablan, and Asmaa Mohammed al-Khatib, a reporter for Rasd media channel.
Al Jazeera said the sentences were “unjust” and “politicised” and said it was “part of a ruthless campaign against freedom of speech and expression, aimed at muzzling the voice of a free media in Egypt”.
The sentences, Al Jazeera said, were “incriminating to the profession of journalism which all international laws and legislation seek to protect, and to all journalists who should be enabled to report with objectivity, professionalism, and integrity”.
Basson said “Sanef believes that intervention by President Zuma would be in line with the African Peer Review system and in finding African solutions to African problems”.
Basson noted that about two years ago Sanef handed a protest note to the Egyptian Ambassador in Tshwane, protesting at the sentencing of three other Al Jazeera journalists. They were later pardoned.
In 2015, Egypt cracked down on media reports of terrorist attacks in their country and passed a law that required members of the media to publish the government’s “official” version of such attacks.
African News Agency