Media crackdown more severe for Egyptian journalists
President Adly Mansour pledged to help secure the release of Australian journalist Peter Greste, arousing speculation that foreign journalists are receiving preferential treatment over local journalists.
CAIRO — It has been 60 days since Abdullah Elshamy last ate. The journalist has been in prison since Aug. 14 of last year, when security forces arrested thousands and killed as many as 1,000 people during the dispersal of a sit-in in support of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Abdullah will turn 26 in May. He was arrested at a checkpoint after police saw his visa with Al Jazeera identification, said his brother, photojournalist Mohammed Elshamy. He was accused of “inciting violence, spreading sectarian violence and killing police officers,” his brother told Al-Monitor.
Seven months into his detention, Abdullah has yet to receive a trial date. He began a hunger strike in protest in January. When his brother last saw him, a month later, he appeared to have lost 30 pounds. Mohammed said he has urged him to end the hunger strike for health reasons, but Abdullah is persisting, “until he has a trial or is released.”
“It is a battle whose victories I reap every day, as I confront every obstacle to the moment when the breeze will breathe upon my face under an unobstructed sky,” Abdullah wrote in a letter last week to his mentor and colleague, reporter Tayseer Allouni of Al Jazeera.
