Three Al Jazeera English journalists were arrested in Egypt for doing their job to report the news. Al Jazeera PR team alongside the editorial, creative and marketing teams were tasked with creating a global groundswell support for their release. The team launched a global advocacy campaign, building an army of advocates in media, government and the public over the period of their detention, with all their support being unified in a clear storyline under hashtag campaign #freeajstaff.

The campaign resulted in the following:

Support from: UN, the White House EU, Australian Government, and more, plus 150+ rights groups, including Amnesty, the CPJ, HRW; 200,000+ people signed petitions, letter from 40+ of the world’s top journalists

• BBC, CNN, ITN, Channel 4, Fairfax Australia, Toronto Star and more held their own protests

• #FreeAJStaff had 674,800 tweets reaching 125 mil delivering over 3.64 billion impressions

• New York Times ad went viral, retweeted over 4,000 times

• 2000+ articles covering the case globally

Impact on policy (as covered in media)

• President Sisi stating his regret for the situation

• Egypt Consul in Australia stated it has affected his ability to develop trade

• Impact on global cause behaviour: #freeajstaff was one of the most powerful advocacy twitter campaign in 2014

• Agenda setting: media freedom has been at the front of Governments and media agenda

Result: Australian journo freed, two on appeal.

A Global Day of Protest in February kicked off the #FreeAJStaff movement, gaining mass coverage. Letters and statements of support were obtained throughout the first half of the year. The surprise sentence of 7-10 years jail issued in June meant the #FreeAJ campaign exploded again. The PR team was well prepared, igniting its army of advocates and media who had been engaged from the beginning, as well as dealing with new interest.

Detailed press packs had been maintained, and distributed efficiently, a key to the global coverage after the verdict. Likewise, spokesperson were polished with key messaging,and managed to deliver 40 interviews in 48 hours after the verdict, for maximum impact.

Essentially, the PR team continued engaging key people and organisations, finding opportunities for new content creation in a myriad of mediums to amplify the case of the journalists, with the end result being a MEDIA FREEDOM MOVEMENT.

• Support from: UN, the White House EU, Australian Government, and more, plus 150+ rights groups, including Amnesty, the CPJ, HRW; 200,000+ people signed petitions, letter from 40+ of the world’s top journalists

• BBC, CNN, ITN, Channel 4, Fairfax Australia, Toronto Star and more held their own protests

• #FreeAJStaff had 674,800 tweets reaching 125 mil delivering over 3.64 billion impressions

• New York Times ad went viral, retweeted over 4,000 times

• 2000+ articles covering the case globally

Impact on policy (as covered in media)

• President Sisi has stated his regret for the situation

• Egypt Consul in Australia stated it has affected his ability to develop trade

• Impact on global cause behaviour: #freeajstaff was one of the most powerful advocacy twitter campaign in 2014

• Agenda setting: media freedom has been at the front of Governments and media agenda

Australian journo freed, two on appeal.