... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula,as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
journalists including Australia's Peter Greste to jail terms from seven to 10 years Monday in a verdict denounced internationally as "chilling" and "unjust".
Greste and Egyptian-Canadian Mohammed Fadel Fahmy each got seven years, while Egyptian producer Baher Mohammed received two sentences, one for seven years and another for three.
Eleven defendants tried in absentia, including one Dutch journalist and two British journalists, were given 10-year sentences.
The verdict provoked an international outcry and raised fears of growing media restrictions in Egypt.
"Today's conviction is obviously a chilling and draconian sentence," US Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
told journalists in Storied Baghdad, a day after he visited Cairo where he urged Egyptian leaders to uphold press freedom.
The Australian government said it was "shocked" by the verdict.
"We are deeply dismayed that a sentence has been imposed and appalled at the severity of it," Canberra's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.
"It is hard to credit that the court in this case could have reached this conclusion," she added.
Al-Jazeera chief Mustafa Sawaq said in Doha: "We condemn... this kind of unjust verdict. ... We are shocked. "Greste's brother Andrew said he was devastated.
"It is definitely not what we were expecting. I was hoping for acquittal... we will continue to fight for his freedom," he said.