DOHA: Interpol, the international organisation for police cooperation, has rejected a request from Egypt to issue one of its red notices against Ahmed Mansour, an Al Jazeera journalist, according to a statement from Al Jazeera network.
An Interpol red notice is one of the closest instruments to an international arrest warrant. The network says the rejection of the request by Interpol is another clear indication of how the targeted campaign by Egypt against Al Jazeera is failing in the eyes of global opinion.
Mansour was convicted earlier this month in absentia by an Egyptian court and given a 15-year jail term for carrying out alleged torture during the January 25th revolution in 2011. Mansour rejected the charges as absurd, while Al Jazeera dismissed the accusation as a flimsy attempt at character assassination against of one of its leading journalists.
In an email to Al Jazeera’s lawyers, Interpol confirmed receiving a request from Egypt’s National Central Bureau about Mansour, but said that the red notice request “did not meet Interpol’s rules”.
The award-winning network that recently won an Emmy and has been the benefactor of multiple journalistic awards said that it remained committed to its mission of putting the human being at the centre of its news agenda and giving a voice to the voiceless in the face of continuing harassment and imprisonment of its journalists by the Egyptian authorities. The network also reiterated its call for the release of the three Al Jazeera English journalists who have been in jail since December 29 as part of a separate case.
The Peninsula
