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Egyptian Leader Says He Won’t ‘Interfere’ In Verdicts Against Journalists

Egyptian Leader Says He Won’t ‘Interfere’ In Verdicts Against Journalists

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — Striking a defiant tone amid a cascade of international criticism, President Abdel Fattah Sisi declared Tuesday that he would not intercede in the case of three journalists from the broadcaster Al Jazeera, who were sentenced a day earlier to lengthy prison terms.

The sentencing of the three men to seven years in jail on terror-related charges, with an additional three-year term handed down to one of them for allegedly possessing ammunition, triggered denunciations by rights groups and calls for Sisi to step in. Western governments, including the Obama administration, condemned the court proceedings as unfair and the verdict as gravely harsh.

Rights groups and other observers maintain that Egyptian authorities’ claim that the three aided the Muslim Brotherhood — an Islamist movement banned as a terror group — was motivated by Egypt’s anger at Qatar, which owns and operates Al Jazeera. The Persian Gulf emirate has been a vocal backer of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was deposed last summer in a military coup after nationwide protests demanding he step down.

The three journalists — Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, all with long resumes of work at well-regarded international outlets — have been held since December. Colleagues around the world have sought to keep the case in the public eye with online protest campaigns calling for their release.

The journalists’ families and others had expressed hopes that Sisi might commute the sentences or pardon them outright. But the former military man appeared to dash those hopes in a televised address at a military graduation ceremony, in which he insisted — as Egyptian officials have done with regard to other extreme rulings, such as mass death sentences — that the independence of the courts must be respected.

“There has been a lot of talk over the verdicts issued yesterday,” the President told his audience. He said he had spoken with the Justice Minister and “I told him one thing: We won’t interfere in judiciary matters, because the Egyptian judiciary is independent and lofty.”

Sisi’s remarks echoed the Foreign Ministry guidance given to Egypt’s diplomats around the world for discussions with governments objecting to the verdict. A number of envoys had already been summoned by the governments in question, including Britain, Australia, and the Netherlands. Two Britons and a Dutch national received 10-year jail terms in absentia in the same case.

Monday’s sentencing came only a day after U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry had visited Cairo and raised concerns about the case, while publicly promising the swift restoration of military aid suspended last year amid concern over the Cairo government’s campaign to crush the Brotherhood.

Kerry himself is now being sharply criticized by supporters of the convicted journalists for an overly accommodating stance toward the Egyptian leadership, which has enacted a range of repressive measures in the past year. Sisi took office as president this month, but had been the main power since the toppling of Morsi.

Special correspondent Amro Hassan contributed to this report.

Image: Egyptian state television Al-Masriya

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Egypt Presidential Candidate Sisi Says Muslim Brotherhood ‘Finished’

Egypt Presidential Candidate Sisi Says Muslim Brotherhood ‘Finished’

By Laura King, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood can look for no handouts from Abdel Fattah Sisi, the man expected to be Egypt’s next president. Nor, apparently, can secular opponents of the government.

In the first televised question-and-answer session of his campaign, which aired Monday night with another segment to follow on Tuesday evening, the former field marshal took questions from generally friendly and non-confrontational interviewers from two Egyptian broadcasters.

Sisi, the former defense minister who has been Egypt’s de facto leader for the past 10 months, said it would not be possible for the Brotherhood, once Egypt’s largest political movement, to re-enter political life. The group has been formally branded a terrorist organization, and thousands of its followers are in jail. More than 1,000 of them have been killed in clashes with security forces.

The retired military man, who wore a suit and light-blue tie for his TV appearance, declared that the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July was not at the military’s behest, but that of the Egyptian people. And Sisi said the subsequent sweeping crackdown against Morsi’s movement marked the implementation of a popular mandate.

“It’s not me who finished the Muslim Brotherhood — the Egyptian people have,” he said, adding that other militant groups that have emerged in recent months were merely “camouflage” for the Brotherhood. The movement has publicly renounced violence, but the government blames it for a wave of violent attacks.

Sisi’s forceful rejection of any public role for the Islamist group seemingly flies in the face of calls for political inclusiveness from the Obama administration and other Western governments. It also appeared to set the stage for a long-term confrontation with adherents of the Brotherhood, the region’s oldest Islamist group and one that has deep roots in Egypt.

Over many decades, successive Egyptian leaders sought to contain and curb the movement, but never entirely succeeded.

The highly orchestrated interview appeared to set the stage for the remaining three weeks of the campaign before the presidential vote. Rather than a live question-and-answer session with possibly unpredictable results, the former field marshal sat for the tightly scripted interview on Sunday, and it was carefully vetted by his campaign before its release over two days.

Sisi shot to immense popularity after the coup against Morsi, and he is still heavily favored to win the election, although some cracks have emerged in his support. The Brotherhood is boycotting the vote, and young people also largely stayed away from the polls in a constitutional referendum in January.

But many Egyptians equate a series of repressive measures by the interim government as guarantors of security — despite a sharp rise in violence under the military-backed administration. The last 10 months have been punctuated by bombings, and the army is battling an active Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula.

In the interview, the 59-year-old Sisi also expressed support for Egypt’s harsh and much-criticized protest law, which effectively criminalizes spontaneous street demonstrations. It has been used as a tool not only against backers of the Brotherhood, but secular opponents as well. Sisi said the protest law, enacted last November, was a means of countering “chaos.”

“This law is to regulate protests and not ban them,” he said. “I’m talking about a country. People have to understand this and support us on this, and anyone believing otherwise wants to sabotage Egypt.”

Sisi’s sole competitor in the presidential race, Hamdeen Sabahi, had previously announced that he would abolish the protest law and pardon all those imprisoned under the law if he wins the election. The vote is set for May 26-27.

Jonathan Rashad via Flickr