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Comment by 1egyptian | Hacker News Reader

Egyptian here. Puzzles me how such a piece gets all the attention, while hundreds of other Egyptians sentenced to death, and other thousands killed in peaceful protests do not get nearly as much coverage.. Oh, an Australian

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This is a big story because the death sentence sends a message to the world that foreign journalists risk their life just for reporting the news in Egypt. It suggests that Egypt is heading towards a closed, non-democratic future and could pose a significant risk to other countries.

This piece is from an Aussie news site, so obviously it will highlight that the journo was Australian. But the bigger story is that - despite the revolution - Egypt is still a long way from being open and free.

Also as an aside, it also sends a big message to the business world: "Don't invest in Egypt - it's not safe for foreigners."

Egypt is a beautiful country with great people. I hope they can overcome this.

Australia, on the other hand, is 'open for business'

Downvoters unfamiliar with Oz politics: This is a mildly notorious political catchphrase, not too far off from "Mission accomplished" in the US.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-20...

I prefered the D-Day kerfuffle http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/02/tony-abbott-vid...

I preferred Great Big New Tax, which they conveniently introduced themselves.

Haha.. let's not go down the rabbit hole of Australia's current political situation.

FWIW the death sentences passed on 183 people in Egypt did get a lot of coverage and condemnation here in the UK. I wouldn't read too much into stuff being picked up here on HN - it is pretty random.

So how many people's lives were saved by this coverage and condemnation, that's the real question.

I don't think some country's ruler gives a damn about coverage and condemnation, as long as it stops there.

With respect I disagree. The most metallic of tinpot despots still believes themselves to be righteous and want to be loved and admired. Amnesty International's experience is that such rulers care sufficiently when a bunch of ordinary people write them letters for that to be a worthwhile thing to do in support of political prisoners. Worthwhile along useful dimensions like stopping torture and so on.

A foreign journalist working for a news organisation with a pretty good reputation. Generally that's news wherever it happens in the world. I haven't been following what has happened in Egypt. I now know it has become a place where foreign journalists working for Al-Jazeera are sentenced to prison when those in power don't like the reported stories. I'm sure there's a lot more nuance than that and it's a view through a straw at the country but it's not a good sign for Egypt. From spring straight to winter?

I've been following enough of what's happened in Egypt that I can tell you this is the least of the bad news from there; spring passed straight to winter quite a while ago. In short, foreign interference in Egypt - in the Middle East in general - in recent years has been an unmitigated disaster. It's long past time we in the West started minding our own business and focused on fixing the problems in our own countries instead of exacerbating the problems in other people's countries.

> From spring straight to winter?

That would be Ukraine, where two Russian journalists were killed recently during bombing of Lugansk.

The death of journalists during intense fighting is - while extremely tragic and hopefully rare - not at all comparable to them getting sentenced by courts for simply reporting news. The former is to some degree unavoidable (if they got target specifically then everything changes), while the latter is an explicit act of government against freedom of press and speech.

Egyptians putting Egyptians on trial has almost nothing to do with the rest of the world. It's Egyptians doing it to themselves, and really isn't our concern anymore than it is your concern for how we sentence drug crime here. Besides, An African or Middle Eastern country doing something stupid is so common place, it's simply not news anymore.

Regardless, it would be bigger news if a western country jailed an Egyptian for telling false news. Reporters are still sacred for a while longer in the west, and to imprison a reporter goes beyond a chilling effect.

I don't get it - would you prefer that Australia doesn't report on the Egyptian government suppressing free speech?

As to why this story rises to the top in the international press, it's because it's a bit meta - when you have free press in your country, other countries can leave the reporting of internal affairs to the local media. The loss of this internal check and balance is an important event on an international scale, whereas, quite frankly, the sentencing of death to Egyptians by their courts isn't.

Actually, since the Arab Spring, the United States media (at least) has devoted a disproportionate amount of attention on events in Egypt. While the covered topics are newsworthy and, in my opinion should be covered, most global events and countries don't receive the same level of attention.

Actually, this article should not really even be here as it's about politics/current events:

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It gratifies the average hacker's intellectual curiosity.

That seems pretty dubious to me. Despotic regimes behaving badly is not really new or "interesting" to much of anyone. It's interesting because it's a current event, which means it should not be here.

Maybe not new, but definitely interesting. You're far too cynical.

This kind of thing goes on all the time, all over the world, to varying degrees. It's definitely something I'd read about in The Economist, but it's not at all "intellectually gratifying", and is off topic as a political current event for this site.

It's about as intellectually gratifying as the latest world cup results, but maybe not as much as Andrew Talansky's recent victory at the Critérium du Dauphiné, which was accomplished with daring tactics and great racing.

And yet, it has made its way to the front page.

If I get together enough people, I could probably get the bike racing results on the front page too!

The fact that people voted for it has no bearing on whether it's off topic. If you want a pure popularity contest, the most "intellectually gratifying" thing out there might turn out to be Justin Bieber articles or something like that.

Here is a previous, more complete comment of mine on why politics is bad for sites like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530

You said it wasn't interesting. I disagreed. It appears others have also. My final word on this. Feel free to have the last word, if you like.

Ok, I'll try and explain it in another way: it's an interesting bit of news for people like me who follow current events. It's sad to see it happening after the 'Arab Spring', and I wonder how it will affect other countries, what the US reaction to it will be, and so on.

So it's "interesting" and important from a current events/politics point of view. But not at all in a "deeper understanding of the world" way. The latter is what Hacker News should be about. There are tons of sites for the former.

For what it's worth, The Daily Show has been covering Egypt fairly regularly, including having Gihan Ibrahim as a guest earlier this month.

Perhaps that's because those overseas journalists who report these things have been put in jail for 7 years. Oh. Overseas free press.

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