We express our strong concern over the recent Egyptian court decision to imprison three journalists of al-Jazeera - Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed - and to convict three further foreign  journalists in absentia for allegedly ‘falsifying news’ regarding the protests in Egypt last summer.

We make use of this opportunity to recall as well that this is not the first time that the Egyptian authorities have imprisoned or detained journalists, including those working for our organisations, such as Turkish Radio Television’s (TRT) Metin Turan.

Our 74 radio and television member organisations from 56 European countries and our associate members from Asia, Africa and the Americas, call upon the court in Egypt to re-consider the verdicts, and on the government to do everything within their power to secure their immediate release, in view of the universal obligations of freedom of expression enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’.

Our concerns also extend to journalists being unjustly detained or imprisoned in other countries and we therefore reiterate our strong belief that journalists must be allowed to work around the entire world without fear of persecution, not just in Egypt.

We call on all media organisations and the international community to join us in making strong representations to the relevant Egyptian authorities in order to secure the release of these journalists without delay.

Reporting on serious civil unrest is not a crime.