Culture

Watch An Emotional Peter Greste Learn That His Al Jazeera Colleagues Have Finally Been Pardoned

He was delivered a phone with the news on live TV, while recording last night's episode of The Chaser's Media Circus.

by Steph Harmon  24 September 2015

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[Correction: The initial post of this article suggested the clip came from a live recording; the episode was filmed last night, to be broadcast at 8pm tonight on the ABC.]

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On December 29, 2013, Australian journalist Peter Greste was arrested by Egyptian authorities alongside two of his colleagues from Al Jazeera, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. The trio were accused of reporting news that was “damaging to national security”, and Greste was sent to solitary confinement for a month before formal charges were made. On June 23, Greste, Fahmy and Mohamed were found guilty of spreading false news about the government and supporting the Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood; Greste and Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in prison, and Mohamed was sentenced to ten.

International outrage ensued. With a lack of clear evidence and an unjustifiably extreme sentence, the trial and its result became a symbol of government overreach that threatened the overarching principles of free speech and accountability that lie at the heart of journalism. Greste and his colleagues were positioned as political prisoners, and the world rallied around them with the #FreeAJStaff campaign.

On February 1, after 400 days in prison, Greste was finally deported to Australia, where he has spent the last seven months tirelessly campaigning for his colleagues Fahmy and Mohamed to be released. Last night, while shooting an episode of The Chaser’s Media Circus at Sydney’s ABC Studios in Ultimo to be broadcast tonight, Craig Reucassel delivered him some good news: Mohamed Fahmy had been pardoned in Egypt.

“We’ve been fighting for the past eight months for this, and I mean — Christ, I’m sorry,” says an emotional Greste, hopeful that the news for one meant a pardon for both. But if not: “That’s one down.”

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Since the clip above was shot, the full story has come out: Greste and both of his colleagues, along with a third person from the case and around 100 others, have been pardoned by Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Prisoner releases in Egypt often take place around this time, on the eve of the Muslim holidays of Eid; the journalists were released within hours of the announcement.

“I’m absolutely happy, but so tired,” Baher Mohamed told the ABC; it has been 633 days since their initial arrest.

Mohamed Fahmy took to Twitter, announcing a well-earned “party time”:

Fahmy also used the occasion to remind the public of the case of Shawkan Zeid: a young Egyption photojournalist who has been held without charge for over two years in Cairo’s Tora Prison, where he shares a tiny cell with 12 other men.

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The Chaser’s Media Circus will be broadcast tonight on the ABC, and will land on iView shortly after.