Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2014-06-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the position of free media in Egypt.

Baroness Warsi

The British Government is appalled by the sentences given to Egyptian and international journalists in Cairo on 23 June, including to two British nationals being tried in absentia. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Right Hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), made a statement on 23 June expressing his concerns and urging the Egyptian government to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of expression by reviewing this case as a matter of urgency.

The Egyptian Ambassador, Ashraf el-Kholy, was summoned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on 23 June. FCO Political Director, Simon Gass, told the Egyptian Ambassador that the Government was deeply concerned by the verdicts, along with the procedural shortcomings seen during the trials. Our Ambassador to Egypt raised this issue in Cairo with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 24 June. We will continue to monitor the situation of these journalists very closely, and raise the issue with the Egyptian authorities. The UK believes that a free and robust media is a bedrock of democracy.