Borneo Bulletin Digital

26 / 32

World 26 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2020
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities detained
a prominent local journalist on Monday on
charges of spreading fake news, his lawyer
said, in the government’s latest crackdown
on press freedom.
Mohamed Monir, 65, was taken by plain-
clothes security ofƒicers from his apartment
in Giza, his family said in a statement. Over
the weekend, Monir posted surveillance foot-
age on his Facebook page, showing scores
of heavily armed police ofƒicers breaking into
his home to search it when he was not there.
He later appeared before state security
prosecutors who ordered his 15-day pretrial
detention on charges of spreading fake news,
joining a terrorist group and misusing social
media, said his lawyer, Nabeh el-Ganadi.
Monir is Editor-in-Chief of al-Diyar news-
paper and a former deputy editor of the pro-
government Al-Youm Al-Sabae , or Seventh
Day newspaper, among other outlets, his
lawyer said.
The Interior Ministry did not respond to a
request for comment on the case.
Monir’s family said he had been inter-
viewed recently by Al-Jazeera TV, a Qatari-
owned channel banned by Egypt’s gov-
ernment, but meant no harm by it. His
lawyer did not comment on his connection
to Al-Jazeera.
After the 2013 ouster of President Mo-
hamed Morsi amid mass protests against his
one-year rule, Egyptian ofƒicials shut down
the Al-Jazeera network and detained many of
its reporters, accusing the outlet of providing
a platform for Egypt’s enemies, particularly
the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
Monir’s arrest drew sharp condemnation
from the global press advocacy group Com-
mittee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), as well as
the local journalists’ union. “Egyptian author-
ities must immediately and unconditionally
release journalist Mohamed Monir and drop
these baseless charges,” said CPJ’s Middle
East and North Africa programme coordina-
tor Sherif Mansour. “Monir is already in failing
health, and to detain him pending trial during
a pandemic is exceptionally cruel.”
The group also noted that Monir criticised
the Egyptian government’s response to the
COVID›19 pandemic on Al-Jazeera. Rights
groups have repeatedly raised alarm that
Egyptian authorities are using the pandemic
as cover to escalate their clampdown.
Several members of the Egyptian jour-
nalists’ union called for an emergency board
meeting to discuss the “siege imposed on
freedom of the press,” noting that Monir is
the fourth union member to be arrested in
the recent weeks.
“The authorities know that those who are
arrested have no connection to acts of vio-
lence or incitement to it,” board member Mo-
hamed Saad Abdel Haƒiz wrote on Facebook.
“Silencing everyone and spreading fear is
their goal, not only for journalists, but for all
those who express an opinion or different po-
sition in this country.”
General-turned-President Abdel Fat-
tah el-Sissi has overseen a sweeping crack-
down on dissent, suppressing critics and
jailing thousands.
Egyptian authorities have been accused
of using ƒlimsy terrorism charges to imprison
political and social opponents. The govern-
ment has previously denied human rights
violations and justiƒied arrests on national se-
curity grounds.
CPJ named Egypt the third worst jailer
of journalists.
Egyptian journalist detained on fake news charges
Three Zimbabwean women denied bail, accused
of lying about abuse
Zimbabwe opposition activists arrested on accusations of lying that they were abducted make
a court appearance at the Magistrate’s Court in Harare. PHOTO: AP
HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Three young fe-
male opposition activists in Zimbabwe, who
charge they were tortured and sexually as-
saulted by state agents, were sent back to
prison when a court denied them bail on new
charges that they lied about their ordeal.
The three women were returned to Chi-
kurubi maximum security prison, notorious
for housing hardcore criminals in poor con-
ditions, after Magistrate Bianca Makwande
rejected their bail application on Monday.
The magistrate agreed with the prosecu-
tion that the women could commit more
crimes or ƒlee the country before their case
is concluded if they are released on bail.
The ruling will be appealed, according to
their lawyer Alex Muchadehama who is with
the organisation Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights.
The three women, all members of the
opposition party the Movement for Demo-
cratic Change, face up to 20 years in prison
or a ƒine. Their case has been highlighted
by human rights groups in Zimbabwe and
internationally. A group of United Nations
(UN) experts last week criticised President
Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government for a
“reported pattern of disappearances and tor-
ture” by government agents in the southern
African nation.
The women already faced charges of con-
travening Zimbabwe’s coronavirus lockdown
because they organised an anti-government
rally. Last week new charges accused them
of making false statements to police “alleg-
ing that they had been unlawfully detained
or kidnapped by some unknown people who
claimed to be police ofƒicers”. The women
are also accused of intending to incite vio-
lence with their statements.
The women allege that after they were
arrested in May for organising the rally, po-
lice allowed them to be taken away from the
police station by unidentiƒied men who beat
them and raped them. The women were miss-
ing for nearly 48 hours before being dropped
by a roadside near Bindura, about 90 kilome-
tres northeast of Harare.
While they were treated in a hospital for
their injuries, the three were charged with
contravening lockdown regulations by par-
ticipating in the protest.
On Monday, their lawyer accused pris-
on authorities of starving them while they
were locked up by refusing relatives or
friends to bring them food to a jail known for
food shortages.
Political tensions are high in Zimbabwe,
where inƒlation above 700 per cent is stok-
ing anti-government sentiment. A Cabinet
minister accused unnamed foreign em-
bassies and political rivals of supporting
“regime change”.
President Mnangagwa and the minister in
charge of police Kazembe Kazembe last week
claimed that the three women had fabricated
the story of their abductions as part of a wid-
er plot to destabilise the government.
Kazembe, ƒlanked by military and police
commanders, dismissed “rumours” of an
impending coup, saying the government “is
stable and peaceful internally”.
Amnesty International condemned the
denial of bail for the women.
“The continued arbitrary detention of Joa-
na Mamombe, Cecilia Chinembiri and Netsai
Marova amounts to persecution through
prosecution and is designed to send a chill-
ing message to anyone daring to challenge
the Zimbabwean authorities,” said Amnesty
International’s Deputy Director for Southern
Africa Muleya Mwananyanda.
“These women are victims of an escalat-
ing crackdown on the right to freedom of
expression and criminalisation of dissent. In-
stead of persecuting them, the Zimbabwean
authorities should focus their efforts on hold-
ing those suspected to be responsible for
their horrifying abduction, torture and sexual
assault to account.”
Sudan finds mass grave thought to be linked to 1998 killings
CAIRO (AP) — Sudanese authorities found a
mass grave believed to contain the bodies of
dozens of student conscripts who were shot
or beaten to death in 1998 after trying to ƒlee
a military camp, the country’s top prosecu-
tor said on Monday.
Taj al-Ser Ali al-Hebr told reporters that
his ofƒice launched an investigation and that
some suspects from the government of top-
pled President Omar al-Bashir ƒled the coun-
try. He did not provide further details.
The conscripts had tried to escape
the Ailafoon military camp, some 15 miles
southeast of the capital, Khartoum, af-
ter their commanders refused to allow
them to go home to celebrate a major
Muslim holiday.
The Sudanese opposition at that time,
known as the National Democratic Alli-
ance, said soldiers shot and beat to death
74 student conscripts, and at least 55 others
drowned when their boat capsized on the
Blue Nile while they were trying to escape.
In total, at least 261 recruits tried to escape
the camp, it said.
Al-Bashir’s government said 31
people died.
The National Democratic Alliance said
the bodies of 12 students were handed over
to their families and 117 others were buried
in a mass grave on April 6, 1998. It said au-
topsies showed that the students had been
“beaten with sticks” and shot.
Al-Bashir’s government was believed
to have forcibly conscripted men from
streets and markets for training to ƒight an
insurgency in South Sudan, which gained
independence more than a decade later,
in 2011.
In his press conference, al-Hebr said 40
people would be tried over the extremist-
backed coup that brought al-Bashir to pow-
er in 1989. He did not name them or detail
the charges.