CAIRO (Pacific Media Watch / The Guardian): One of the four al-Jazeera journalists jailed in Egypt for covering uprisings has been released from prison after 306 days.
The Guardian's Patrick Kingsley reported from Cairo that Abdullah Elshamy was released on health grounds, having spent almost 150 days of his jail time on a hunger strike, to the point where doctors warned that he was "at risk of death".
Canadian-Egyptian producer Mohamed Fahmy, Australian reporter Peter Greste and local producer Baher Mohamed are still in prison, having been charged with "doctoring footage, aiding terrorism and conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to damage the country’s reputation".
They were subjected to a three-month trial and the verdict is expected next week.
Greste's union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has called his trial "a farce and a vicious attack on press freedom", after prosecutors called for the maximum jail term of 15 years in prison.
MEAA federal secretary Christopher Warren said in a statement: "Over the course of five months and 11 hearings, not a shred of evidence has been produced by the prosecution that suggests anything other than the journalists have been producing ethical, balanced and responsible reporting of the chaotic events in Egypt in the latter part of 2013.
"Instead, we have seen the prosecution humiliate itself with comical effect producing as 'evidence': a pop song by Gotye; holiday snapshots of Peter Greste's parents; video of news stories by other networks; unintelligible phone conversations by unidentified people; dubious photos that appear to have been tampered with by parties unknown; and completely unrelated news reports of events in other countries,” he said.
Defence lawyer Khaled Abu Bakr said: "Nobody could pinpoint a single video that was a threat to national security".
Greste's former journalism school, the Queensland University of Technology, has also campaigned for his release.
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