Germany is facing enormous flak today relating to the arrest of al-Jazeera’s Ahmed Mansour, a 52-year-old reporter who Egypt had sought on charges of “torture” during the anti-Mubarak revolution in Egypt. Egypt’s junta has sentenced him to 15 years on the charges, which most agree are politically motivated.
The junta has eagerly cracked down on reporters seen as unfriendly to their 2013 military coup, and has particularly targeted al-Jazeera for being too friendly with the democratically elected government the coup removed from power.
Germany’s involvement stinks of quid pro quo, with the arrest of Mansour coming in the wake of the junta giving German engineering company Siemens a $9+ billion deal. Mansour had criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel over feting Egypt’s ruler Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, during a visit aimed at finalizing that deal.
Interestingly, Germany did not attempt to stop Mansour from entering the country, nor attempt to arrest him at the time, even though the same Egyptian warrant was outstanding then. It was only after Sisi’s visit that the arrest came. Interpol had refused to grant Egypt a valid warrant for Mansour, and it is unclear on what legal basis Germany continues to detain him.
Merkel is quickly becoming the most corrupt German ruler in a long time.
Snowden should stay away from Germany unless the Pirate Party takes over.
Selective morality and principles of Western Europeans government is very astounding to say the least.
"it is unclear on what legal basis Germany continues to detain him."
Hahaha. Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!
An amusing jumble of inaccuracies! Interpol is not a court of law. It does not "issue" warrants. It seems that it was unwilling to transmit this warrant via its network, which would have sent it practically all the world´s police forces. That doesn´t stop the Egyptian police sending it to any police force it wants to. They sent it to to the Bundespolizei. Nobody outside that police force will have been aware of the warrant´s existence, so the idea of a "quid pro quo" is absurd. Naturally, when Mansur landed in Germany with an outstanding warrant against him, he was arrested and the matter referred to the Public Prosecutor, who released Mansur pending a hearing. Countries are not required to extradite where the offence charged is a political offence. Either way, the court decision is subject to appeal all the way to the European Court of Human Rights and a decision to extradite has to be confirmed by the government. THAT decision can also be appealed all the way to Strasbourg. not to extradite puts an end to the matter once it is n o longer subject to appeal. The legal basis of all this is the Egyptian warrant. No plots! Nothing unclear! Just the ordinary working of international extradition law.
Let see what would the self righteous west the ever defenders of free speech and press do about this ?!
What happened to Merkel's "21st century rules?"