By Pakinam Amer
Associated Press Writer
First Published: 11 Feb., 2008 10:20
Cairo - An Egyptian appeals court on Monday spared an Al-Jazeera journalist a six-month prison sentence by overturning a ruling that she tarnished the country's reputation after running a report on police torture, a judicial official and her lawyer said.
But the court upheld Howaida Taha's conviction on a separate charge that she fabricated videotapes used in the documentary and maintained a 20,000 Egyptian pound (about US$3,600) fine imposed on her, said a judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Taha, a documentary producer for the pan-Arab satellite station who is known for her criticism of the Egyptian regime, was first detained in January 2007 for two days for possessing 50 video tapes that police alleged contained fabricated scenes of torture by Egyptian police. At the time, she said the footage was a "reconstruction" for a documentary.
She was sentenced in May to six months in jail after a Cairo state security court found her guilty of "harming the country's interests" and "fabricating" the torture scenes.
Taha's lawyer, Ahmed Helmi, said he planned to take the case to the country's highest court, the Court of Cassation, in hope that the conviction on the second charge of fabricating the videotapes would be overturned.
"For now, we will pay the fine but the conviction in her case is really baseless. That is why we will proceed with the case," he said.
Taha is currently in Doha, Qatar, where she lives and where Al-Jazeera is based.
The torture documentary, "Beyond the Sun," was aired on Al-Jazeera in April, as Taha had kept copies of the confiscated tapes.
Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely conducted in Egyptian police stations. The government denies systematic torture but has investigated several officers on allegations of abuse. Some were convicted and sentenced to prison.
During her last visit to Egypt late January, Taha was again briefly detained and questioned along with her crew before being released.
She was taken into custody while filming in a low-income neighborhood in Cairo for allegedly not having official permission to film, her lawyer and police had said.
Police also confiscated her tapes and sent them to be inspected by the Department of Artistic Inspection.
Taha has said she did obtain the proper permission to film but said she was later told that she also needed a separate permission from the Interior Ministry _ something she said was not part of normal procedure.
The documentary she was working on when she was last detained deals with people living on the edge of society.
Link: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=500&sid=1343495
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