Cairo // An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced the head of the journalists’ union and two members to two years in prison for “harbouring fugitives”, allowing them to pay bail pending an appeal.
Journalists Syndicate president Yahiya Kallash, Gamal Abd El Rahim and Khaled Elbalshy were charged in May with sheltering two journalists wanted over protests against the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.
The court set bail at 10,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh2,310), a court official said.
Their arrest following a May 1 police raid on the union building to detain two reporters from an opposition website drew condemnation from rights groups.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the court ruling.
The three were being punished “for working to protect journalists from harassment, threats, and arrests,” the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator Sherif Mansour said.
The European Union had said the indictment of the journalists’ syndicate members was “a worrying development”.
“It reflects broader limitations on freedom of expression and press freedom in Egypt,” an EU spokesperson said at the time.
Kallash had denounced the police raid on the union headquarters to arrest reporters Amr Badr and Mahmud Al Sakka, saying the government was “escalating the war against journalism and journalists”.
Activists had organised two protests in April against handing the islands to Saudi Arabia.
A court later ruled that the transfer could not go through.
*Agence France-Presse
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Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history
Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)
Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.
Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)
A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.
Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)
Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.
Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)
Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.
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