CPJ: Al-Jazeera Journalist Released

After the recent flurry of journalist murders this month—Charlie Hebdo, ISIS, the Sudan—the Committee to Protect Journalists finally had some good news to report.

CPJ says that Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who had been imprisoned in Egypt for "conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood," had been released and was being deported. Greste was arrested in December 2013.

"We welcome the release of Peter Greste," said Sherif Mansour, CPJ Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.

But there is more work to be done. "We call on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to pardon and release Greste's Al-Jazeera colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, and the other journalists still behind bars for doing their work," added Greste.

CPJ says Egypt is the sixth biggest jailer of journalists, with 12 imprisoned as of CPJ's "prison census" in December 2014.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.