Al Jazeera journalist freed from German jail

A Cairo court had sentenced Ahmed Mansour, a joint British-Egyptian national, to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square.

|
Fabrizio Bensch/REUTERS
Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour (c.) is greeted by supporters after being released in Berlin, Germany, June 22, 2015.

Prominent Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour walked free from a Berlin prison on Monday, drawing a line under an awkward diplomatic incident for Germany two days after he was detained at Egypt's request.

Ahmed Mansour, one of Jazeera's best-known journalists, was released after Egypt was unable to dispel concerns about the extradition process, the Berlin public prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Earlier, a foreign ministry spokesman told a news conference that Germany would not extradite anyone to any country where he or she might be sentenced to death.

A Cairo court sentenced Mansour - a joint British-Egyptian national - to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square, the focus of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Mansour and Al Jazeera deny the charge.

"I thank the defense team. I thank the free press. I thank all of you," Mansour, dressed smartly in black, shouted to a crowd of his supporters outside central Berlin's Moabit prison.

The crowd chanted "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest) and "Down, down with military rule" - a slogan that is chanted in pro-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations - in reference to the military rule that followed the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi of the Brotherhood.

Egypt accuses Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed Islamist movement that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed from power in 2013 when he was army chief and denounces as a terrorist group.

Mansour's case has put Germany in an awkward position as it tries to balance business interests and human rights.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was criticized by opposition parties and rights groups for hosting Sisi this month. During that visit, German industrial group Siemens signed an 8-billion-euro ($9-billion) gas and wind-power deal with Egypt.

Last year, an Egyptian court jailed three Al Jazeera journalists on charges that included aiding a terrorist group. One of them, Australian Peter Greste, was released in February after 400 days in prison.

Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalized Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were released on bail in February after spending more than a year in custody and are being retried.

Since Sisi took power in 2013 and won a presidential election the following year, courts in Egypt have issued scores of death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood members, including the group's leadership.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Al Jazeera journalist freed from German jail
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0622/Al-Jazeera-journalist-freed-from-German-jail
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe