{"id":34032,"date":"2019-03-04T11:23:02","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T11:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34032"},"modified":"2019-03-04T11:23:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T11:23:02","slug":"renowned-egyptian-news-photographer-shawkan-released-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34032","title":{"rendered":"Renowned Egyptian news photographer Shawkan released from prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Award-winning Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known as Shawkan, has been released<\/span>\u00a0in his country after more than five years in prison.<\/p>\n

The photographer, who was arrested while covering a crackdown on anti-military protests back then, was freed on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

He posted a picture on his Twitter with the hashtag “hello asphalt”, a phrase used by Egypt<\/a>‘s political prisoners when they get freed.<\/p>\n

\n

\u064a\u0627 \u0623\u0647\u0644\u0627 \u0628\u0627\u0644\u0623\u0633\u0641\u0644\u062a … \u2764#Shawkan_Is_Free<\/a>#\u0634\u0648\u0643\u0627\u0646_\u0639\u0627\u0644\u0627\u0633\u0641\u0644\u062a<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/bZot9HBO7o<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mahmoud Abou Zeid (@ShawkanZeid) March 4, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“He was released at 6am (04:00 GMT) from the Al-Haram police station (near the Giza pyramids) and is currently at home,” his lawyer Taher Aboul Nasr told the AFP news agency.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shawkan was arrested in August 2013 while covering clashes between security forces and supporters of the overthrown President Mohamed Morsi<\/a> that turned into a bloodbath in which hundreds of demonstrators died.<\/p>\n

The photojournalist was jailed and put on trial along with 739 defendants, most of them charged with killing police and vandalising property.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was one of the largest mass trials since the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In September, an Egyptian court upheld<\/a> death sentences of 75 defendants and gave Shawkan a five-year jail term, which covered the time he had already served. However, he remained in jail awaiting his release.<\/p>\n

International condemnation<\/span><\/h2>\n

Shawkan was accused of “murder and membership of a terrorist organisation”, charges that can carry the death penalty. His arrest sparked condemnation from international rights groups, which demanded his release.<\/span><\/p>\n

Britain-based Amnesty International said at the time he had been convicted “simply for doing his job as a photojournalist and documenting the police brutality that took place that day”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other 214 people who were sentenced in September to five years in prison were also\u00a0<\/span>released on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi<\/a>, a former army chief, was elected in 2014 nearly a year after leading the military’s overthrow of Morsi following mass protests against his year-long rule.<\/p>\n

Sisi, who critics say has carried out a widespread crackdown on dissent, was re-elected in March 2018 after securing more than 97 percent of the votes in the absence of any serious competition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) group ranks Egypt 161st out of 180 countries on its press freedom index.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Award-winning Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known as Shawkan, has been released\u00a0in his country after more than five years in prison. The photographer, who was arrested while covering a crackdown on anti-military protests back then, was freed on Monday. He posted a picture on his Twitter with the hashtag “hello asphalt”, a phrase used…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":34033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}