{"id":12021,"date":"2019-03-05T07:11:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=12021"},"modified":"2019-03-05T07:11:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T23:11:49","slug":"egypts-award-winning-photojournalist-released-after-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=12021","title":{"rendered":"Egypt\u2019s Award Winning Photojournalist Released After 5 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" src=\"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12024\" srcset=\"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid-1024x512.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid-300x150.jpg 300w, http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid-768x384.jpg 768w, http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid-600x300.jpg 600w, http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Abu-Zeid.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Photo courtesy  Abu Zeid  Twitter<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Cairo, March 3 (NNN-TELESUR) &#8211; Egypt released award-winning photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid who was imprisoned since 2013 for covering army crackdown on protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Egyptian authorities released a photojournalist Monday who was imprisoned in 2013 for covering a protest that ended with security forces killing hundreds of protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, after being released, posted a picture on Twitter with the hashtag \u201chello asphalt,\u201d a phrase used by freed political prisoners. &#8220;I can&#8217;t describe how I feel \u2026 I am free,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;He was released at 6 am (04:00 GMT) from the Al-Haram police station (near the Giza pyramids) and is currently at home,&#8221; his lawyer Taher Aboul Nasr told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shawkan was imprisoned along with 739 supporters of overthrown President Mohamed Morsi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shawkan was charged with belonging to a banned group and possessing firearms. He was sentenced to five years in prison last September in a mass trial which saw 75 people sentenced to death and more than 600 others to jail terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was supposed to spend five years in prison but got out because he already spent that time before being sentenced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Shawkan reunited with his family, 5 years later. Arrested while covering Rabaa massacre in August 2013. (AP photo by Amr Nabil) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QqKxGDUQ7F\">pic.twitter.com\/QqKxGDUQ7F<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Mosa&#39;ab Elshamy (@mosaaberizing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mosaaberizing\/status\/1102499589695918081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>UNESCO awarded him its 2018 Press Freedom Prize and said his detention was an abuse of human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Amnesty International said in a statement Monday that Shawkan &#8220;should never have been forced to spend a single minute behind bars \u2013 let alone five and a half years&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He vowed to continue with his work, saying, &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The violent breakup of the 2013 sit-in was a key moment in the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising, as the military led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi moved to assert its control after forcing out Mursi, Egypt&#8217;s first freely elected head of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sisi was elected president the following year and has overseen a sweeping crackdown on dissent in which thousands of Islamist opponents, as well as scores of liberal activists and journalists, have been imprisoned. Sisi and his supporters say they needed to stabilize the country following the upheaval triggered by the 2011 uprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ar\" dir=\"rtl\">\u064a\u0627 \u0623\u0647\u0644\u0627 \u0628\u0627\u0644\u0623\u0633\u0641\u0644\u062a &#8230; \u2764<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Shawkan_Is_Free?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Shawkan_Is_Free<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/%D8%B4%D9%88%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%81%D9%84%D8%AA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#\u0634\u0648\u0643\u0627\u0646_\u0639\u0627\u0644\u0627\u0633\u0641\u0644\u062a<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bZot9HBO7o\">pic.twitter.com\/bZot9HBO7o<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Shawkan (@ShawkanZeid) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShawkanZeid\/status\/1102416067241103360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cairo, March 3 (NNN-TELESUR) &#8211; Egypt released award-winning photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid who was imprisoned since 2013 for covering army crackdown on protesters. Egyptian authorities released a photojournalist Monday who was imprisoned in 2013 for covering a protest that ended with security forces killing hundreds of protesters. Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":12024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213,296],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12021"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}