– ‘Dark time for journalism’ –
Greste’s elderly parents, who had been hoping for an acquittal, said they were “shattered” by the decision but vowed to battle on for the sake of press freedom.
“This is a very dark time not only for our family, but for journalism generally,” his father Juris Greste told a press conference.
“There will always be people, governments, and institutions wanting to limit the speaking of one’s mind and telling the way we see,” he said, repeating the catchcry of the defence campaign: “Journalism is not a crime.”
All the defendants had been accused of aiding the Brotherhood and tarnishing Egypt’s reputation after the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. READ: Egypt court to give verdict in Al Jazeera trial.
Nine of the 20 defendants were on the staff of Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based pan-Arab news channel which has come in for strong criticism in Egypt over its coverage of a deadly crackdown on Morsi’s Brotherhood.
Cairo considers Al-Jazeera to be the voice of Qatar and accuses Doha – which has denounced the repression of the Islamist movement’s supporters which has left more than 1,400 people dead – of backing the Brotherhood.
In Doha, Al-Jazeera chief Mustafa Sawaq condemned the verdict, charging that evidence provided by the prosecution “was not enough to jail someone for a single day”.
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