Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by noting my deep regret for the passing of the Governor of Tasmania, the Hon. Peter Underwood AC, and pass on my condolences to his family. Mr Underwood was certainly someone highly respected by the Tasmanian community—right across all spheres of the community, from the arts community to the multicultural community and to the law and justice field—and he will be sadly missed.

I am rising this evening to speak on another matter of grave public importance. Just over a year ago today, the first government democratically elected by the Egyptian people was overthrown in a military coup d'etat. The leader of that coup, the then Supreme Commander of the Egyptian Military Forces, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is now President el-Sisi, having won a surprisingly high 96 per cent of the vote in the June election. And whether as Supreme Commander or as President, Egypt's leader has not been the staunch defender of Egyptian democracy some of his comments suggested he would be. In truth, it has been quite the opposite.

Since June 2013 perhaps more than 22,000 Egyptian citizens, some of them children, have been detained indefinitely in military prisons without trial, and effectively unacknowledged by the Egyptian government, for no reason other than attending a protest—and sometimes not even that. Over 1,400 Egyptians have been killed in protests, while 183 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to death in a mass trial last month. Something is clearly rotten in the state of Egypt, but amidst all this cruelty and sadness Australians have been focusing on the fate of one man: a journalist named Peter Greste. He is a close friend and a colleague to many of our own friends in the press gallery; an Australian.

We know the salient details of his case by now, and by now we are agreed on the fact that the future he and his family face today is utterly bleak and outrageously unjust. Suffice to say, journalism is not a crime in a democratic society; journalism is a necessity. Peter Greste is a journalist. Juris Greste, Peter's father, has appealed for people to remember:

… guys like Peter, at the moment, look like having to pay a very, very high price to be able to learn about what is happening in difficult and challenging places around the world.

A free press with freedom of expression and opinions is one of any country's most critical democratic rights and freedoms. In the UN General Assembly's first session in 1946, before any human rights declarations or treaties had been adopted, it adopted resolution 59(I) stating:

Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and … the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.

In this country courageous and unhindered journalism improves our democracy by enabling public participation in decision making. Australian citizens cannot exercise their right to vote effectively or take part in public decision making if they do not have free access to the information and ideas on difficult and challenging issues reported by journalists.

Totalitarian governments never allow a free press. While in name Peter Greste was tried and convicted of the so-called crime—and I use that word dismissively—of helping to promote false news benefiting the Muslim Brotherhood, in reality he was tried and convicted of being a journalist. So Egypt then is not a democracy, and before our eyes it slides further from the democratic hopes and dreams for which its people sacrificed so much in 2011. Along with his colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, Peter Greste was arrested in late December 2013, two weeks into a routine assignment covering Egypt's political situation. The prosecution's most damning evidence against him included a documentary he had produced about Egyptian soccer, footage of sheep farming and photos of his parents on a European vacation. According to the Egyptian foreign ministry, Egypt's judiciary:

… enjoys full independence, and the new constitution provides safeguards to ensure media freedom and to guarantee due process in judicial proceedings.

And yet, on the basis of evidence less conclusive and less relevant than images of Italian holidays and sheep eating grass, Egypt's 'fully independent' court sentenced Greste and Fahmy to seven years in prison, while Mohamed received a 10-year jail term. In front of the world, this was as good as Egyptian due process gets. The standards of due process afforded to those 22,000 untried Egyptians not in the global spotlight might be imagined.

Peter Greste is not a criminal. He and his family are innocent victims of a terrible, frightening injustice. I would like very much to recognise the extraordinary bravery and inspirational attitudes of Peter's family, particularly his parents, Lois and Juris Greste. But recently they talked about driving out through the desert to see Peter for the first time after his sentencing. They were promised two hours and were given 45 minutes. Juris Greste said it was 'horrendous'. Imagine having that feeling—getting to see your son, and the very act of being with him, of spending time with him, being 'horrendous'. They had a small bucket between them and, as they were sharing hugs, Juris said it might have overflowed with tears and sobs. And even then, as hard as that initial meeting was, as many tears and sobs as there were, the darkest moment was when he and his wife were told by the prison authorities that their time with Peter was up.

Despite all their positivity, hope and advocacy, Juris admitted that Peter and his family are now having to 'really, really, face the cold, hard, real possibility that Peter may be imprisoned for as long as seven years'. Peter is also aware, obviously, that his career in journalism, a career he loved and of which he was understandably proud, may well be finishing in the Egyptian sands.

I would like to commend the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and shadow foreign minister, Tanya Plibersek, for her early and unwavering support of Peter Greste and the idea of a free press. She has expressed brilliantly Labor's anger at Peter's treatment and how appalled we all are by his sentence. She has made it absolutely clear, more than once, that Labor stands ready to assist the Abbott government to do everything it can to secure Peter's release and our gratitude for the hard work of Australian diplomats on Peter's behalf. I also commend the foreign minister for her strong and principled language on behalf of the government. I urge her, though, to ensure that the Abbott government remains in contact with President el-Sisi's government and takes any sensible chance it can to intervene for Peter.

I hope very much for his sake, for his family's sake, for journalism's sake and for Egypt and its people's sake that Peter Greste's career is not over. The Greste family want us to keep our interest in Peter's case. This is the least we can do. Indeed, I trust that we, as Australia's parliament, will remain united in our efforts to do as much as we can for Peter and his family. I am very confident that we will. In the words of the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten:

All the Grestes should know that the Australian parliament will stand with them for however long it takes to free their beloved son and brother.