Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian journalist who was imprisoned for over a year in Egypt, was at Carleton University on Monday evening to speak about press freedom and life after his release.
The panel was co-hosted by Carleton’s School of Journalism and Communications and the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom. Neil Macdonald, a senior CBC correspondent, led the panel.
Fahmy spoke in detail about his time in prison and the conditions he endured. He said that in order for a society to be truly free, journalism must never hold the threat of imprisonment.
“The job for me is my life. Any journalist that takes it on that way needs to understand there is a price. But it shouldn’t be prison or dying,” Fahmy said.
Fahmy was arrested in December 2013 on terrorism charges relating to his work as a journalist. The Egyptian president eventually pardoned him on Sept. 23, 2015, several months after Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship.
Fahmy also said the lack of free press is a global epidemic and one of the greatest breaches of human rights.
“We need to be a unified force against the threat against journalism,” Fahmy said. “It’s not one country now, it’s everywhere and even countries in the west.”
Since his release, Fahmy has started the Fahmy Foundation to advocate for journalists imprisoned around the world. Now, he said he would gladly return to Egypt to continue working.
“To me, I would go to Egypt again. I just need a break and a vacation,” Fahmy laughed.