IHT/DSE: Freedom of the press under fire

By Pakinam Amer
First Published: July 3, 2006

Press syndicate rejects amendments to press law, government sends draft to parliament for review

CAIRO: Following lengthy negotiations and protests, the press syndicate has announced its rejection of government-proposed article amendments to Egypt’s press law; the syndicate sent an official letter Sunday to the president of the state expressing their “discontent” and refusal of the much-debated draft press law.
After meeting with Shura Council (lower house) head Safwat El-Sherif, the selected convoy of journalists and syndicate representatives deemed the greatly anticipated meeting “disappointing” and “an indication of the negative intentions [from the side of the regime].” The members of the official convoy did not see the final draft of the law, but their outlined demands were not appropriately underscored.
The amendments to the law, long-promised by President Hosni Mubarak as part of his plans for wide-scale political and social reform, were expected to protect journalists and writers from prosecution and jailing for writing and in libel and slander cases. But the proposed “strict” law did anything but, according to syndicate members, placing even heavier fines on journalists in press crimes and protecting them from imprisonment only under exceptional conditions.
When the proposal for the law was first initiated, high-profile members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), including Gamal Mubarak and government officials, including their spokesman Magdy Rady and El-Sherif himself, prematurely praised the law (even before its drafting), calling it a “positive step towards reform” and deeming it “another victory” for press freedom. Journalists, however, differed.
Holding protests a few weeks ago condemning both the law and the government proposing it, the syndicate has not stopped demonstrating since, calling the law “a step backward” and deeming the government insistent on stifling reporters. This Monday, the journalists promise to sit-in at the syndicate’s quarters to voice their disapproval, while the syndicate’s General Assembly has set an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss the situation.
Meanwhile, the government finally passed the law to parliament in a decision that seemed to exclude the journalists themselves.
What made matters worse for journalists, as voiced by many columnists and leaders, is editor and journalist Ibrahim Eissa’s case. Journalists claim that this draft of a press law brings injustice and yet another era of struggle for the syndicate and its loyalists and point to the four-day-old court decision to jail Eissa, editor of Al-Destour newspaper and fierce government critic, only along with a fellow journalist as proof of their fears.
Eissa’s case, with the editor receiving a one-year sentence and released on LE 10,000 bail pending appeal, provoked angry reactions from several local and international human and reporters’ rights group. The angry reports threw a dark shadow on government initiatives toward press freedom and political reform, deeming government policies toward journalists as attacks on a free and independent press.
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) has expressed “deep concern” and “astonishment” toward what they had called in an official press release “the continued restriction of the freedom of press in Egypt, and also at the increased spread of lawsuits against independent newspapers that dare to criticize the government and President Mubarak.”
“It is worth-mentioning that the president did not cancel the penalty of imprisonment in publication offences as promised more than two years ago,” read the report.
The report dwells on other cases of concern. Topping them is the case of Sawt-Al-Umma Managing Editor Wael Al-Ebrashy, who is currently being prosecuted for publishing what two outspoken judges had called “the black list of judges,” reportedly a group of judges who were involved in vote rigging in last year’s presidential elections.
Also shedding light on the root of most press troubles, the CIHRS report called “anew for the prompt enactment of legislation prohibiting the imprisonment of journalists in publication cases, putting an end to the series of lawsuits and investigations against independent journalists and abstaining from their prosecution in accordance with provisions that contravene international standards of freedom of expression and/or provide for imprisonment as a penalty in publication offences.”
The report also “reiterates the necessity of reviewing legal legislation that allows non-competent entities or persons of no direct interest to file lawsuits.”

Link: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2114