A “Marriott Cell” member at the Frontline Club!

Nov 2018

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London- After being jailed for 13 months in three different Egyptian prisons, Aljazeera journalist Peter Greste spoke of his bitter experience at the Frontline Club on Thursday.

It was more than a year ago when Greste and his colleagues were detained by the Egyptian intelligence service from their hotel room in Cairo for “reporting false news.”

Upon Being asked about his feeling when he was arrested. “We knew that we hadn’t done anything wrong,” he said. However, the Egyptian court sentenced him to a seven-year prison term for his part in “aiding a terrorist organization”.

From the very beginning, Greste realised that he is in danger, physically and psychologically. In order to deal with the difficulties, he chose meditation as a way of coping with the situation. “I had to make a conscious decision to stay fit, physically fit, psychologically fit, and spiritually fit,” he said.

Peter Greste had realised that the greatest danger in prison is the prisoner’s mind. Staying in a positive state of mind was the key point to Greste in order to find his way of approaching the hostile environment.

Being held in dreaded cell for more than a year helped Greste to discover a new capability in himself. “I’ve discovered that my limits are a lot further than I thought they were, and it’s a very empowering thing,” he said.

In February 2015, all the pressures on the Egyptian government from media and diplomatic pressures contributed to Peter Greste’s release. “I had two governments on my case – Australia and Latvia, and I didn’t even know that I was Latvian,” Greste said.

At the end of the meeting, Greste talked about the importance of being unified as journalists and highlighted the freedom of media in the world.

However, Peter Greste is still a declared guilty in the Egyptian government eye and the charges against him have still not been dropped.