Al Jazeera journalists back in Egyptian court

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed face retrial after being freed on bail in February, having spent over 400 days in jail.

Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed are due back in an Egyptian court for retrial.

The hearing is scheduled later on Tuesday in Cairo after being postponed from an April 22 hearing.

Fahmy and Mohamed are on trial for a second time for allegedly harming national security and aiding the banned Muslim Brotherhood, charges which they and Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network reject.

The Cairo court which adjourned the trial said the pair would have to report to police every day and could not leave Egypt.

They had been freed on bail on February 12 after more than 400 days.

"Our life is disturbed in all means, going out, hanging out, doing anything," Fahmy and Mohamed said outside the court house last Wednesday.

Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian, and Mohamed, an Egyptian national, along with Australian Peter Greste were sentenced last year to between seven and 10 years in jail on charges including spreading lies to help a "terrorist organisation" - a reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Al Jazeera strogly denies the accusations and stands by its journalism.

Greste was freed on February 1 and deported after 400 days in a Cairo prison.

The journalists' imprisonment reinforced the view of human rights groups that the government was rolling back freedoms gained after the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Fahmy showed his new temporary Canadian passport, issued on Wednesday, to the media after he renounced his Egyptian citizenship last year as a condition of any future release from Egypt.

His original passport was seized upon his detention in 2013, but the Canadian government had been refusing to give him a new one citing his bail conditions.

Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship last year as a condition of any future release from Egypt.