While former Al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy says he will not be endorsing any candidate in the upcoming federal election, he said he feels he has a responsibility to highlight “the mistakes” the Harper government made when attempting to secure his release from an Egyptian prison.
“I don’t believe Mr. Harper understood the urgency of the situation I was facing while Canadians on the ground and the international community did,” Fahmy told CP24 during a one-on-one interview Tuesday afternoon.
Fahmy was arrested with two colleagues in 2013 when he was the Cairo bureau chief for Al-Jazeera English. He was later convicted and sentenced to three years in prison after a court accused him of airing “false news” and coverage biased in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The case was widely condemned by human rights groups and last month, Fahmy was pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Since arriving back in Canada on Sunday, Fahmy has met with both Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair.
Fahmy says he does not intend to tell Canadians who to vote for but that he is grateful to both Trudeau and Mulcair for their help while he fought for his freedom.
“They contacted my family, they spoke to my lawyer, they questioned Mr. Harper in Parliament,” Fahmy told CP24.
“We discussed what I think should be done in terms of lessons that should be learned from this case.”
Fahmy said that without the collective effort of many people, including human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, he would not have been freed from prison.
“She was a game-changer in this whole crisis,” he said of Clooney.
“She did what Al-Jazeera wasn’t doing. She was lobbying with Egyptian ambassadors in Washington, in Canada and she was engaging with the Egyptian presidency and prime minister where I am actually detained, not just aggravating and challenging the government.”
Fahmy and his family are moving to Vancouver, where he previously said he plans to take a position as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of journalism.
