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"We're expecting more from Canada. We know that Canada is a powerful nation and we know that they can intervene to let him out."
"Nothing came out from the Canadian authorities yet. He's being held with the highest profile Muslim Brotherhood members."
"Yesterday his fiancee was able to meet with him for a couple of minutes. Last thing he said was, 'I have full faith that the Canadians will get me out of this."
Sherif Fahmy, Kuwait

"We all know him and have never known him to be anything but a consummate professional and a dedicated journalist. He has only advocated for telling the story."
"We're not advocates of anybody's cause. We're here to report on what's happening at a very important time in Egypt. The challenge is you never know when the rules change."
Nancy Youssef, journalist, Cairo

 

Cairo University students supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer

 

Just how critically incumbent is it upon the Government of Canada through its official diplomatic channels -- to continually be fully engaged in looking after those with Canadian citizenship whose free choices to travel abroad, particularly to areas of the world where danger is everpresent, and who may as a result find themselves in seriously life-or-freedom-compromising situations -- comply with those who insist on Canada bailing them out?

Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist, is a 40-year-old television producer with the Al-Jazeera English news broadcaster. He was arrested along with two fellow journalists, an Australian and an Egyptian, while working in a Cairo hotel room, on December 29. This is Egypt, which has been roiled with conflict since the removal of Muslim Brotherhood stalwart, President Mohammed Morsi.

The Brotherhood's supporters and their Islamist allies have opposed Egypt's military and the new, interim government, causing havoc within the country, creating dangerous situations for Egyptian Copts, attacking police stations and police, as well as the military, particularly in the Sinai with the aid of Salafist Bedouin and Hamas militias. There are al-Qaeda-linked factions actively deployed in the Sinai, aiding the insurrection there.

In this chaotic time in the country Mr. Fahmy, as head of Al Jazeera's Egypt operation, is performing his professional function on behalf of a broadcaster whose reputation among some Middle East countries is charged with anger and resentment. Journalists that present themselves as independent of government-approved news media are always in danger in such places at such times; they pursue what they see as their mandate regardless.

There is the precedent of John Greyson and Tarek Loubani, a Canadian film producer and an emergency-room physician planning to travel to Gaza through Egypt precisely at the most challenging time in Cairo's struggle with the conflicting agendas of the military and the Brotherhood. Present during a mass protest turned violent, they were arrested as infiltrators and a danger to Egypt. Canada did exert its influence to help in their eventual release.

The Fahmy family, who moved to Canada in 1991, the parents still living in Montreal, are concerned over Mohamed Fahmy's safety in an Egyptian prison. He had worked for The New York Times and CNN after graduating in journalism from a Calgary university, before making the move to Egypt in 2011. He chose to accept the position as Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Cairo. He has dual citizenship. As an Egyptian living in Egypt, it is the law of that land that dictates his fate.