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Journalists For Reform Condemns Life Imprisonment, Execution Orders

In a short statement, rights movement Journalists For Reform (affiliated with the anti-coup Egyptian opposition) condemns absurdly unjust sentences against journalists, and stresses this will not terrorize them into abandoning their media mission.

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 Journalists For Reform (JFR) condemns the farcical ruling issued today (Saturday) by the junta's judiciary sentencing 13 journalists and media workers to life imprisonment, and the confirmation of the death sentence of media journalist and writer Walid Shalaby.

Today's court ruling dealt out life imprisonment sentences against journalists and media professionals including: Hani Salah-Eddin, Ahmed Sobei, Mohamed Al-Adli, Abdullah Fakharani, Samihi Mustafa, Moussad Al-Barbary, Gamal Fathi Nassar, Magdi Abdel-Latif, Abdu Dessouki, Hassan Hosni Kabany, and Amr Farag.

It is clear that the junta's judiciary, in this case – as in many others, was only a tool in the hand of the military, fulfilling the wishes of the coup regime and the generals, who do not wish to have any honest journalists or media professionals anywhere near them, lest they convey the truth to the public, their real professional mission. The coup regime only wants to use paid media henchmen as a mouthpiece for the dissemination of unchecked corruption – media 'professionals' with neither conscience nor morals.

Today, the press and media in the whole world should mourn the death of this profession and its freedom in Egypt. Nevertheless, free and honorable journalists will not retreat, cower or hesitate to perform their profession and convey their public message no matter how desperately the junta endeavors to terrorize them. A journalist is essentially a warrior fighting ignorance, injustice and corruption – the elements on which the military coup regime exists and survives.

Journalists For Reform

Cairo – April 11, 2015