//Skip to content
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

#FreeAJStaff: an ode to Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed

December 30, 2014

About seven months ago, I was waiting for an appointment in an empty cafè in The Hague, the Netherlands. My interviewee was delayed, so I started reading the newspaper and the cleaner asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. When she came back, we started talking.  She was a middle-aged woman who turned out to be an Egyptian that immigrated to the Netherlands about twenty years ago. Her husband was a journalist and I showed her the front page of that day. It was about Rena Netjes, a Dutch journalist who would hear her sentence by the Egyptian court that day for working at Al-Jazeera English. Which is the same as financing the Muslim Brotherhood. Which is the same as being a terrorist. At least, according to the Egyptian secret service logic.  Rena was expected to get a ten-year prison sentence. Later that day I would interview Rena – who fled Egypt before she was arrested – over the phone, and I asked the Egyptian woman how she felt about this entire process and how it reflected upon press freedom in her homeland. I told her there was…


Hi guest,

You've read all of your free articles.
Subscribe now to support independent journalism and to enjoy:


Unlimited access to all our articles

Exclusive events and offers

First access to new premium newsletters

Ability to comment on articles

Full user profile