The UBC Graduate School of Journalism has welcomed the pardon of imprisoned Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, who has been fighting terrorism-related charges in Egypt since December 2013.
Fahmy, and his Al Jazeera colleague Baher Mohamed, were among those pardoned by Egypt’s president on the religious celebration of Eid al-Adha.
Fahmy has accepted a position as an adjunct professor at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism. He will be Global Reporting Journalist in Residence at the school, as well as a W. Maurice Young Centre Visiting Fellow in Applied Ethics.
“As a school, we are elated at the news of Fahmy’s pardon,” said UBC Journalism director Alfred Hermida. “Students are keen to hear from Fahmy about his experiences and unique perspective on the importance of freedom of expression.”
The pardon comes less than a month after a second trial sentenced Fahmy and Mohamed to three years in prison. A third Al Jazeera journalist, Peter Greste, was released and deported in February.
Guest lectures at UBC
Once he arrives at UBC, Fahmy will be invited to serve as guest lecturer in classes offered by the journalism school and elsewhere at the university. He will also assist UBC Journalism associate professor Peter Klein in developing the Global Reporting Centre initiative at the university.
This position of adjunct professor is co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism, the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics and by Klein, who was instrumental in bringing Fahmy to UBC.
Fahmy will also offer a campus-wide lunchtime lecture about his experiences, as part of the Centre for Applied Ethics series, Dialogues on Accountability in Ethically Responsible Institutions.
He is scheduled to speak at the Vancouver Institute free public lecture series at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, October 31 at UBC’s Woodward Instructional Resources Centre.
Fahmy and two other Al Jazeera English journalists were detained in a raid on their hotel room in Cairo in December, 2013. The charges against the journalists — of operating without a press licence and broadcasting material harmful to Egypt — were widely denounced.
