There has been strong condemnation after three Al-Jazeera journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison by an Egyptian court.
Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian national Mohammed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were found guilty of spreading false news and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. They denied the charges in Cairo.
Greste family spokeswoman Heidi Ross said the verdict was unexpected.
"I can't see how the family can continue after this. They will, of course, because they have to. We always knew it was possible but you just don't think it could possibly happen, especially as there was no concrete evidence against Peter".
"Peter was a correspondent there on a relief posting - he had been there for two weeks, he didn't speak Arabic. He was a correspondent...merely doing his job".
The case has provoked outrage from human rights and freedom of speech activists.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called on international governments to help. Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ General- Secretary, said "The NUJ condemns in the strongest terms these sentences meted on journalists who were merely doing their job".
"The British and Irish governments must immediately signal their opposition to this verdict and do all it can to have the sentences overturned. The NUJ is calling on all media organisations to register their protest in support of colleagues at Al Jazeera and all the Egyptian journalists who have been attacked and arrested by their country's authorities" she added.
Irish Secretary Séamus Dooley said "We call on An Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs to make an immediate protest against this scandlous treatment of journalists. There must be universal condemnation of this infringement of the basic right to freedom of expression".
The US Secretary of State was among those to have lobbied the Egyptian government about the case. While broadcasters such as Sky News and the BBC had also called for their release.
Another 11 defendants were sentenced in absentia to 10 years. Their names are Alaa Bayoumi, Anas Abdel-Wahab Khalawi Hasan, Khaleel Aly Khaleel Bahnasy, Mohamed Fawzi, Dominic Kane and Sue Turton, according to the broadcaster.
Al-Jazeera has always rejected the charges against its journalists and maintains their innocence.
They were arrested in December in Cairo as they covered the aftermath of the army's removal of Mohamed Morsi from the Presidency in July.
Al-Jazeera says the prosecution produced a number of items as evidence - including a BBC podcast, a news report made while none of the accused were in Egypt, a pop video by the Australian singer, Gotye - and several recordings on non-Egyptian issues.
The defence maintained that the journalists were wrongly arrested and that the prosecution had failed to prove any of the charges against them.
Both the British and Canadian ambassadors were in court for the sentencing.
Peter Greste and Mohamed Fahmy were sentenced to seven years in jail, while Baher Mohamed was sentenced to an additional three years for possession of ammunition.
