Australian correspondent Peter Greste, left, and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed at their trial on terror charges in Cairo. Photograph: Hamada Elrasam/AP
The continuing incarceration of journalists is awful and unjust, but Egyptians will still get their democracy; that is not in question
It is three years since Egypt's youth staged their 18-day revolution, after which the world rejoiced that the reign of dictators was over. Now comes yet more confirmation that these hopes were ill-founded, with a mass trial sentencing 683 people to death.
Just as worryingly, many human rights abuses are not even being reported now. Back in 2011 many Arab journalists were optimistic that a new era would begin, and that decades of official media control in Egypt were over. Today, media freedom in Egypt has deteriorated to unprecedented levels.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Egypt as the third deadliest country for the press last year. Television stations were shut down, foreign television station offices were attacked, six journalists were killed, and more than 20 arrested, including four foreign journalists. Several are being tried on charges ranging from the spreading of false information to collaborating with a terrorist organisation (the Muslim Brotherhood).
Collaboration simply means conducting interviews with members of the group, or covering their protests and activities.
Mohamed Badr, an Egyptian al-Jazeera cameraman, was among those who bravely and professionally covered the Arab spring in Egypt and Libya. He was arrested by the Egyptian authorities without a formal charge, and imprisoned for more than 200 days. After his release, he said that he had witnessed and endured terrible physical torture, with detainees forced into painful positions for long periods, and psychological taunting. The guards and police officers accused him of treason on the grounds that he worked for a media organisation the regime disapproved of.
Badr's colleague, al-Jazeera correspondent Abdullah al-Shami, has been detained since August 2013. According to his brother, al-Shami has lost 30kg due to the hunger strike he began three months ago. I knew al-Shami when I served as director-general of the al-Jazeera network and he was the station's correspondent in Nigeria. He is now paying the price for his coverage of the Rabaa al-Adawiya massacre.
Three other al-Jazeera staff are being tried: Egyptian-born Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy, Australian correspondent Peter Greste and Egyptian producer Bahar Mohammed were arrested on 29 December. Prosecutors presented absurd evidence against them including the possession of video interviews – which did nothing but show that they were engaged in journalism – yet the court still refuses to release them on bail and refused again on Saturday.
Tahrir Square in November 2011. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Arab regimes have tried to monopolise the media for decades. Today, the Egyptian authorities are resorting to the same methods: accusing the free media of conspiring against the state, spreading false information, and perhaps most pathetic, spying for foreign forces.
I still remember how Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, when I met him in 2005, accused al-Jazeera of being a Zionist plot – a claim I had also heard from the Egyptian minister of information during Hosni Mubarak's reign. It was intriguing that this coincided with accusations by George Bush and then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, against the station of co-operating with terrorist organisations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The oppression of free speech has failed time after time, as the developments of the revolutions were broadcast via television, internet and social networking sites. The regimes that most fiercely attacked free expression were the most fragile and weak when facing up to youth revolts. Tunisia, the only Arab country that did not allow al-Jazeera to operate at all, was the first to face the wrath of the street. Using the controlled media to hide the facts and serve tyranny was one of the main factors behind the revolution.
Today, the military in Egypt is repeating the same tactics, and will face the same failure. The television screens and newspaper pages loyal to the military fabricate facts and encourage violence against protesters. Such practices will speed up the regime's downfall.
In the past three years, much has changed in the Arab world: the barrier of fear has been torn down, the means of expression have multiplied and a new generation of activists, websites and citizen journalists has emerged.
It is true that traditional media, guided and influenced by the state, has been successful in distortion, deceit and the demonisation of opponents such as those recently sentenced to death; but its impact is limited and short term and it will provoke the people's rage against whomever controls it.
The relapse in the path towards democracy and free speech is merely a short-term hiccup that will not eliminate people's desire for freedom, justice and dignity. Hope for these is the last thing the people will give up
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