BBC Online :
The award-winning Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abou Zeid, who is widely known as Shawkan, has been released after five years in prison.
Shawkan was arrested in 2013 while covering a deadly crackdown by security forces on a sit-in by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Last September he was convicted in a mass trial and handed a five-year jail sentence, which he had already served.
Amnesty International said he was detained solely for doing his job.
“Mahmoud Abou Zeid’s long overdue release brings to an end a painful ordeal for him and his family,” Najia Bounaim, the human rights group’s Middle East and North Africa director, said on Monday.
“As a prisoner of conscience, he should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars – let alone five-and-a-half years.”
Ms Bounaim added that he still faced “outrageous” probation measures that would require him to spend 12 hours of each day at a police station – from 18:00 to 06:00 – for the next five years.
Shawkan, who was awarded the 2018 Unesco/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize, vowed to continue working as a photojournalist despite the restrictions.
“All journalists are at risk of being arrested or killed while doing their work. I am not the first and I will not be the last,” he told Reuters news agency.
Shawkan was arrested in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya square on 14 August in 2013 while on assignment for the London-based photo agency Demotix.
On that day, at least 817 people were killed as security forces violently broke up a sit-in in the square by thousands of Morsi supporters, who had gathered there to protest against the overthrow of the president by the military the previous month.
The award-winning Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abou Zeid, who is widely known as Shawkan, has been released after five years in prison.
Shawkan was arrested in 2013 while covering a deadly crackdown by security forces on a sit-in by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Last September he was convicted in a mass trial and handed a five-year jail sentence, which he had already served.
Amnesty International said he was detained solely for doing his job.
“Mahmoud Abou Zeid’s long overdue release brings to an end a painful ordeal for him and his family,” Najia Bounaim, the human rights group’s Middle East and North Africa director, said on Monday.
“As a prisoner of conscience, he should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars – let alone five-and-a-half years.”
Ms Bounaim added that he still faced “outrageous” probation measures that would require him to spend 12 hours of each day at a police station – from 18:00 to 06:00 – for the next five years.
Shawkan, who was awarded the 2018 Unesco/Guillermo Cano Press Freedom Prize, vowed to continue working as a photojournalist despite the restrictions.
“All journalists are at risk of being arrested or killed while doing their work. I am not the first and I will not be the last,” he told Reuters news agency.
Shawkan was arrested in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya square on 14 August in 2013 while on assignment for the London-based photo agency Demotix.
On that day, at least 817 people were killed as security forces violently broke up a sit-in in the square by thousands of Morsi supporters, who had gathered there to protest against the overthrow of the president by the military the previous month.
