Journalist Peter Greste to go on hunger strike in support of former cellmate
Australian journalist Peter Greste is going on a hunger strike to support his former cellmate from his time in an Egyptian prison on trumped up false publishing charges.
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Australian journalist Peter Greste is undertaking a hunger strike to increase diplomatic pressure about the unfair treatment of his former cellmate from his time in an Egyptian prison on trumped up false publishing charges.
Then-Al Jazeera reporter Mr Greste was arrested with two colleagues in Cairo in December 2013 and ultimately found guilty of falsifying news and having a negative impact on international perceptions of Egypt.
He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment on the trumped up charges, before he was deported to Australia after 400 days behind bars.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal Mr Greste will travel to England and undertake a hunger strike to raise awareness for his former cellmate, Alaa Abdel Fattah.
The Egyptian-British blogger and political activist has been jailed for trumped up false news charges similar to Mr Greste, and the Egyptian government is now accused of violating their own conventions by disregarding his time in pre-sentence custody.
“He is often described as a coder, a blogger, a publisher, as a pro-democracy activist, but those words don’t do him justice,” Mr Greste said.
“He is one of the most extraordinary characters I’ve ever met – a fantastic guy.”
Mr Abdel Fattah’s five-year jail sentence should have ended on September 29 last year – but his prison stint was instead set to begin the day he was sentenced, resulting in his release being put back by two years.
Mr Greste will make his public gesture of support alongside Mr Abdel Fattah’s 68-year-old mother Laila Soueif, who has vowed not to eat until he walks free from prison.
Mr Abdel-Fattah was one of the first people Mr Greste encountered in prison, and remained a lifeline for the harrowing days he spent behind bars.
”He helped me with the psychological tools to get through prison,” Mr Greste said.
“I was really struggling to reconcile the reasons I had been put in prison and I could not see any connection with what we’d actually done, I was coming up with theories about the universe and karma.
“He helped me understand the universe doesn’t have much to do with it – he said ‘this is not about you, it’s what you came to represent’, and that was hugely powerful.”
Mr Abdel Fattah has been repeatedly jailed in deplorable conditions by multiple Egyptian regimes over trumped up false news charges similar to Mr Greste.
Mr Greste said his cellmate heavily inspired his decision to smuggle letters out recounting his experiences.
“They framed what was happening to us, not as a struggle between the government and ourselves, but the government and the institution of press freedom,” Mr Greste recalled.
Mr Abdel-Fattah, as a dual Egyptian-British citizen, has consular support from the UK Government in his case.
Mr Greste said he intends to bring heightened awareness to Mr Abdel-Fattah’s plight by joining his mother’s hunger strike for three weeks.
“When I saw what his mother was doing, I realised I can bring a lot of attention to his case by joining the effort,” Mr Greste said.
“What is happening is a travesty of justice.”
Mr Greste, along with academic and former Iranian detainee Kylie Moore-Gilbert, journalist and former Chinese detainee Cheng Lei, and professor and former Myanmar detainee Sean Turnell also recently gave their support to then-wrongfully detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
The quartet – who were themselves wrongfully detained on trumped up charges in those countries – voiced their outrage at the detention of Mr Gershkovich by the Russian government while he was on a reporting assignment for the News Corporation title.
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