{"id":12665,"date":"2015-09-26T10:40:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T15:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12665"},"modified":"2015-09-26T10:40:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T15:40:18","slug":"media-is-our-last-line-of-defence-mohamed-fahmy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=12665","title":{"rendered":"‘Media Is Our Last Line of Defence’: Mohamed Fahmy"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Media Is Our Last Line of Defence’: Mohamed Fahmy<\/a><\/h3>\n

Newly pardoned journalist Mohamed Fahmy has ”many thank yous” for fellow Canadians who stood by him through his 411-day imprisonment and two-year legal battle in Egypt.<\/p>\n

But though he’s grateful for the efforts of Canada’s ambassador and foreign minister on his behalf, the former\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/i>\u00a0bureau chief said the federal government needs to more aggressively advocate for citizens jailed abroad.<\/p>\n

”There are things that could be done to improve how the government in Canada dealt with my situation,” he said in a phone interview from Cairo on Friday, adding how, on return, he hopes to start a constructive debate on what Canada can learn from his case.<\/p>\n

The Conservative government welcomed Fahmy’s pardon this week by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, along with that of fellow\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/i>\u00a0staffer Baher Mohamed. The two had been sentenced to seven years in prison — convicted of offences including fabricating news and undermining national security in a trial that was widely denounced by human rights groups. In late August, their sentences were reduced to three years following an appeal. A third\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/i>\u00a0staffer, Peter Greste, was earlier deported to Australia.<\/p>\n

”Canada has consistently called at the highest level for Mr. Fahmy’s release and return to Canada,” said Lynne Yelich, Canada’s foreign affairs and consular Minister of State in a Sept. 23 statement. ”The Government of Canada will continue to provide Mr. Fahmy with consular assistance and will assist in facilitating his departure from Egypt.”<\/p>\n

With a University of British Columbia journalism school job waiting for him, Fahmy said he is looking forward to starting ”a whole new life” in Vancouver. He’s also\u00a0launched<\/a>\u00a0the Fahmy Foundation for a Free Press to advocate for journalists and bloggers jailed or persecuted overseas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Media Is Our Last Line of Defence’: Mohamed Fahmy Newly pardoned journalist Mohamed Fahmy has ”many thank yous” for fellow Canadians who stood by him through his 411-day imprisonment and two-year legal battle in Egypt. But though he’s grateful for the efforts of Canada’s ambassador and foreign minister on his behalf, the former\u00a0Al Jazeera\u00a0bureau chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[22,103,250,9299,462,2106,938,5499],"class_list":["post-12665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-al-jazeera","tag-canada","tag-egypt","tag-government-of-canada","tag-journalism","tag-mohamed-fahmy","tag-press-freedom","tag-the-tyee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12666,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12665\/revisions\/12666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}