Jewish Ledger
Netanyahu to make first official visit to Egypt in more than a decade
(Israel Hayom via JNS) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to head to Egypt for a state visit in the coming days, at the request of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, officials in Cairo have confirmed to
Israel Hayom. The official visit will be the first by an Israeli prime minister to the country in over 10 years. Netanyahu is expected to discuss a series of regional issues with the Egyptian leader, chief among them bolstering security and diplomatic ties in light of the Iranian threat and coordinating positions between Jerusalem and Cairo ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s entry into the White House.
CPJ reports record number of journalists jailed worldwide in 2020
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An Oregon State Trooper arrests journalist Gabriel Trumbly during a crowd dispersal near the Portland east police precinct, Portland, Oregon, U.S., 30 August 2020, Nathan Howard/Getty Images At least 274 journalists were in jail in relation to their work on 1 December 2020. China was the world’s worst jailer for the second year in a row. It was followed by Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
This statement was originally published on cpj.org on 15 December 2020.
The number of journalists jailed globally because of their work hit a new high in 2020 as governments cracked down on coverage of COVID-19 or tried to suppress reporting on political unrest. Authoritarians again took cover in anti-press rhetoric from the United States.
International News
Dec 15, 2020
ROME (AP) Two prominent Italian intellectuals announced Monday they were returning their Legion of Honor awards to France to protest that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was given the prize despite his government’s human rights abuses.
Corrado Augias, a longtime journalist for La Repubblica daily and onetime European Parliamentarian for Italy’s center-left, returned his prize to the French Embassy on Monday. Giovanna Melandri, a former Italian culture minister and the president of Rome’s Maxxi contemporary art museum, announced she would follow suit.
Both cited Egypt’s role in the 2016 kidnapping, torture and killing of an Italian doctoral research student in Cairo, as well as the regime’s other human rights violations.
Regeni s parents thank Augias for returning honour to France
Journalist protested at Sisi getting same award
15 Dicembre 2020
ROME, DEC 15 - The parents of Giulio Regeni, an
Italian researcher who was tortured and murdered in Cairo in
2016, have thanked Italian journalist Corrado Augias for
returning his Legion of Honour award to France.
Augias returned the award in protest after it emerged that
France had given the same honour to Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi earlier this year. Augias s example is one of marvellous coherence and of support
to the cause of civil rights, Paola and Claudio Regeni told RAI
television.
Rome prosecutors said last week that they had completed their
“This marks the fifth consecutive year that repressive governments have imprisoned at least 250 journalists,” said Elana Beiser, CPJ’s editorial director and author of the report.
She cited a “lack of global leadership on democratic values particularly from the United States, where President Donald Trump has inexhaustibly denigrated the press and cozied up to dictators such as Egyptian President Abdelfattah el-Sisi” that has exacerbated the “crisis” of free speech.
Governments attempted to delay journalists’ trials and limited access to visitors this year, and at least two journalists died in custody after contracting COVID-19 during their jail time, according to the report.