Journalists Syndicate Undersecretary Gamal Fahmy said the prison sentences issued against the Al Jazeera journalists on Monday were extremely harsh and harmful to the reputation of Egypt.
“Al Jazeera made mistakes but we have to distinguish between the management of the channel and the staff,” he said.
“Although they are not members of the syndicate, we still reject harsh penalties against journalists,” he said, expecting the Court of Appeal to order a retrial. “It was enough to deport the foreign journalists.”
Fahmy claimed the Muslim Brotherhood will make use of the verdict to defame the government.
The Cairo Criminal Court issued a ruling subject to appeal to jail 18 Al Jazeera English journalists from three to 10 years on charges of incitement against Egypt, a case known in the media as the Marriott Cell.
The court, which was held at Tora prison, sentenced 11 correspondents, including three foreigners, to 10 years in prison in absentia, and seven others, including a foreigner, to seven years in prison.
The court acquitted Anas Mohamed al-Beltagy, son of Muslim Brotherhood leading figure Mohamed al-Beltagy, and Ahmed Abdel Hamid Abdel Aziz, two university students who are not journalists.
Al Jazeera said three of its correspondents were sentenced to seven years in prison. They are Peter Greste, an Australian, Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian who holds the Canadian citizenship, and Baher Mohamed Ghorab, an Egyptian national who received an extra three-year imprisonment sentence for possessing unlicensed ammunition.
The three foreign correspondents who were sentenced in absentia to 10 years were two British subjects and a Dutch national.
According to the prosecutor general, they are all charged with incitement against Egypt by broadcasting false news on the Qatari channel.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
