IPI Board calls on Egypt’s president to pardon journalists

VIENNA

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy meets with an International Press Institute (IPI) delegation in Cairo on Jan. 27, 2014. Pictured from right to left are Fahmy; IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie; IPI Executive Board Members Galina Sidorova, Kabiru Yusuf, Daoud Kuttab and Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul; and IPI Press Freedom Adviser Timothy Spence. Photo courtesy of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

The International Press Institute (IPI) Board has called on Egypt’s president to immediately grant a full presidential pardon to all journalists convicted in the country in connection with their work.

The IPI’s Executive Board June 26 in an open letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi expressed outrage at the lengthy sentences handed out this week to three Al Jazeera journalists behind bars in Egypt, as well as sentences pronounced against six other journalists in absentia.

Calling the sentences “unjustifiable,” the IPI Executive Board said prosecutors have failed to provide relevant evidence in court to support accusations that journalists Mohamed Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed aired false news and aided the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization banned in Egypt.

(Click here to read the full text of the letter)