Egypt’s president must pardon Australian journalist Peter Greste and his al-Jazeera colleagues to stem the damage to his country’s reputation, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney said.

A Cairo court has handed three-year jail terms to Greste, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed for broadcasting false news that harmed Egypt following the 2013 military coup.

The case, widely condemned by the international community, has become an embarrassment for Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Clooney, who acts for Fahmy, says he must pardon the men.

'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio

“It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News. “I do think he’s aware of that and he has a way to fix it.”

She said pardoning the men would tell the international community that Egypt accepted they had not committed a crime and that the president had an opportunity to act now, before the trio launched any legal appeals.

“There’s a break now in the judicial proceedings,” she said. “Similarly there was a break in the judicial proceedings when Peter Greste was deported and that was considered sufficient to allow the executive to intervene then.”

Greste was sentenced in absentia on Saturday after being deported from Egypt in February on the orders of the president. But his two colleagues remained in Egypt for the retrial and are now back behind bars.


Al-Jazeera journalists sentenced to three years in prison by Egyptian court
Read more
Greste said his conviction could end his career as a foreign correspondent, but he was more concerned about his colleagues.

The three spent more than a year in jail together before their retrial was ordered.
“President al-Sisi now has an opportunity to undo that injustice, to correct that injustice,” he said.

“The eyes of the world are on Egypt.”

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has promised to continue to pursue all diplomatic avenues with her Egyptian counterpart to clear Greste’s name.

The men have always denied spreading false news...

The muslim brotherhood has been outlawed as a terrorist group in Egypt for many decades.

When Morsi got into power he let all the muslim brotherhood out of jail and tried to form a government with them,the people revolted.
Here is an Egyptian kid telling you why Morsi was thrown out-


The muslim brotherhood are outlawed as a terrorist group in parts of the middle east, there are consequences for supporting terrorists

Get a job and pay some taxes ya dopey bum

Why would the Australian PM complain about an Egyptian Court finding a journalist from a pro-terrorist news network guilty??

Unforgiven wrote on Aug 31^st, 2015 at 6:55pm:


No, the Hamas Press Office ( aka al-Jazeera).

Unforgiven wrote on Aug 31^st, 2015 at 9:17pm:



FD, can we please frame this?

And you should be able to claim some sort of support from the Social Security Minister for providing an outlet for the disabled (raving looney division) of our society.