Egypt's al-Sissi pardons Al Jazeera journalists, activists for Eid

EGYPT-POLITICS-VOTE-SISI

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi  (AFP Photo/Attila Kisbenedek)
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
(AFP Photo/Attila Kisbenedek)

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi on Wednesday pardoned two Al Jazeera journalists jailed for three years in a case that drew worldwide attention to his government’s crackdown on dissent.

Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohammed Fahmy and the network’s Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed were among about 100 prisoners included in a presidential pardon marking the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.

Al-Sissi also pardoned two prominent young female activists, Sana Seif and Yara Salam, who were jailed last year under a law that effectively banned protests without prior police approval.

Fahmy and Mohammed were arrested in late 2013 and charged with publishing false news and collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

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They were sentenced to seven and 10 years imprisonment respectively, in an initial trial in 2014.

The sentences were reduced to three years in a retrial that concluded in August.

A third journalist, Australian citizen Peter Greste, was released and deported on al-Sissi’s orders in February before the retrial started.

Human rights organisations and press freedom groups had called for their release.

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