When Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy was freed from Egypt’s notorious Tora Prison after 438 days of incarceration, he told reporters that he was going to party, go on vacation and put the gruelling experience behind him.
But documentary filmmaker David Paperny knows that has been far from the case.
Since the Egyptian government pardoned him more than two years ago, Fahmy, alongside his wife, Marwa Omara, has been at the forefront of social activism. As the heads of the Vancouver-based Fahmy Foundation, the couple has worked to advocate and provide support for incarcerated journalists worldwide.
Paperny’s new film, Mohamed Fahmy: Half Free, moves between the incredible journey that led to the journalist’s release and his commitment to helping other families get their loved ones out of prison.
The one-hour film will premiere on CBC Television on Sunday, Oct. 1.
“I was very determined to do more than just re-hash the past,” Paperny tells The CJN, “but to try to see how someone survives an ordeal that Fahmy survived, and look at how he pieces his life back together.”
The Vancouver-based director met Fahmy shortly after his release, when the journalist arrived at the University of British Columbia to be a visiting lecturer. Fahmy and Omara visited Paperny’s home for dinner, where they started discussing the project.
For Paperny, Fahmy’s story bore many similarities to the case of the late William Sampson, a dual citizen of Canada and the United Kingdom who was wrongfully imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Paperny’s doc about Sampson, Confessions of an Innocent Man, won a Gemini Award in 2008.
“They were both, in my opinion, not given the full support of the Canadian government during their imprisonment,” Paperny says. “The fact that they had dual citizenship seemed to allow the Canadian government off the hook for what I think is clearly (its) responsibility to help any Canadian in need abroad.”
Mohamed Fahmy: Half Free focuses initially on the journalist’s reportage of the Arab Spring and the steps that led to his decision to head Al Jazeera’s English-language bureau in Cairo.
Shortly after his start there, Egyptian authorities arrested Fahmy and two other journalists, accusing them of fabricating news stories and being members of a terrorist group. The charges were baseless, but the rift between Al Jazeera and the Egyptian government led to a swift trial that did not end up in Fahmy’s favour.
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High-profile lawyer Amal Clooney’s subsequent involvement in the trial helped Fahmy’s story attain international notoriety – and put pressure on the Egyptian government to pardon the Canadian.
The doc’s most fascinating sections show the ways that Omara aided her husband in fighting for his release. That involved smuggling documents and a cell phone into the prison.
Omara “was able to provide him with an outside connection, a way to tell the world what was happening to him,” Paperny says. They “risked their lives to do this, but it was the only way Fahmy was going to survive in there.”
Half Free also contains contemporary interviews with both Fahmy and Omara. Both recount how difficult it was for Fahmy to adjust to civilian life after his release, due to post-traumatic stress.
The film also focuses on their current efforts on behalf of other imprisoned journalists.
Paperny says that although Canada has a new Liberal government, Ottawa still isn’t doing enough to fight for Canadians who are wrongfully imprisoned overseas.
“Soon after Fahmy came out of prison, he collaborated with Amnesty International Canada and presented what he called a ‘Protection Charter’ … which listed protocols that the Canadian government should be using whenever a (citizen) is imprisoned,” Paperny says.
However, the filmmaker says that the Liberals have not addressed this charter: “At the moment, there is no responsibility in law for the Canadian government to help Canadians imprisoned abroad.”