IT is more than eight months since four reportorial staff members of popular Middle-East based Al Jazeera Network were arrested, detained, tried and jailed by the authorities in Egypt for allegedly broadcasting false news and conspiring with the banned Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

In December 2013, correspondent, Peter Greste, and producers, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed, were clamped in detention. Earlier, another Al Jazeera journalist, Abdullah Al Shami, had been hauled into the slammer, and began a protracted hunger strike on January 23rd 2014.

On June 24th, 2014, a judge sentenced the journalists to jail terms ranging from seven to ten years, including those who were sentenced in absentia; a verdict that shocked media advocates around the world, including Reporters Without Borders and Committee to Protect Journalists.

Al Jazeera issued several statements in defence of its staff, saying the accusations were trumped up based on written statements of staff of Egyptian state television, which they were unable to substantiate in court.

The television network has since launched a worldwide campaign for pressure to be brought to bear on the Egyptian government to let its staff go, and the #FreeAJStaff has recorded over 800 million hits in more than 30 countries.

We are lending our voice to this campaign. We are definitely against journalists getting involved in the internal politics of a country trapped in the kind of revolutionary turmoil that Egypt is just recently recovering from. We will not condone media practitioners getting mixed up with the activities of dangerous political outfits like the highly repressive Muslim Brotherhood, whose brief reign in Egypt led to the oppression of religious minorities and unbroken waves of unrests.

We are gravely concerned that the high-handedness with which the Egyptian authorities have handled the case will embolden regimes around the world to stand between the people and their right to know what is happening in their country. We kick against any attempt to maintain an attitude of hostility towards newsmen or endanger their safety, as it does not augur well for a world order in which free flow and sharing of information has come to be taken as a human right.

The trial of the Al Jazeera journalists did not meet the minimum standards in fair hearing and adequate assessment of evidence adduced in their defence. The sentencing itself was draconian and unacceptable in a democratic society.

Now that the volatile situation in Egypt is under control, the regime will do well to demonstrate its goodwill by releasing the Al Jazeera journalists. It will help in further healing the wounds in Egypt and reassuring the world at large that the regime in power is more civilised and exemplary than the Muslim Brotherhood.