Rod McGUIRK
Associated Press
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Monday that he told Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi that a jailed Australian journalist is innocent of charges that he supported the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Australian Peter Greste is one of three Al-Jazeera journalists who were convicted in a Cairo court Monday and sentenced to seven years in prison on charges they supported the Brotherhood, which has been declared a terrorist organization. They were arrested in December as part of a sweeping crackdown on Islamist supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi after the military overthrew him last year.
Ahead of Monday’s verdict, Abbott, a former journalist, said he raised Greste’s case in a conversation with the newly appointed Egyptian leader over the weekend.
“I did make the point that as an Australian journalist, Peter Greste would not have been supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, he would have simply been reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood,” Abbott told reporters.
“The point I made was that in the long run, a free and vigorous media are good for democracy, good for security, (and) good for stability,” he said.
“I did my best to put it to the president that as an Australian journalist, Peter Greste would not have been taking sides. He would have simply been reporting on the events that he saw before him. He certainly would have had no interest in promoting the Muslim Brotherhood,” Abbott said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a sharp rebuke of the verdict, saying Australia would approach Egypt’s government to see if an intervention was possible.
“The Australian government is shocked at the verdict in the Peter Greste case,” Bishop told reporters. “We are deeply dismayed by the fact that a sentence has been imposed and we are appalled by the severity of it. … The Australian government simply cannot understand it based on the evidence that was presented in the case.”
Greste and his Egyptian colleagues, Abdullah Elshamy and Baher Mohammed, had pleaded not guilty to terrorism-related charges that allege they provided a platform for the Brotherhood and Morsi.
The case has caused an outcry among journalists and rights groups, who say the prosecution of the journalists was politicized and undermines freedom of expression in Egypt.
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Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.
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