Journalism in Egypt a crime: HRW

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the verdict handed to Australian journalist Peter Greste was a stark admission that practising journalism in Egypt was a crime.

"...and that the new constitution's guarantees of free expression are not worth the paper they are written on," HRW Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

"The right to free expression is at the heart of any democracy.

"These convictions should immediately be quashed, charges dropped, and the journalists immediately released."

Mr Greste and his Al Jazeera colleagues were sentenced to seven years jail in a Cairo court on Monday.

They are accused of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.