IHT/DSE: Gap growing in coverage of events between independent and state-owned papers

By Pakinam Amer
First Published: May 30, 2006

CAIRO: As opposition and independent newspapers concentrated on Muslim Brotherhood electoral candidates and the Kefaya (Enough) movement’s reaction to the arrest and torture of two of its young members, national papers continue to present government plans for economic and social reform.
The main headlines of the national papers Al Ahram and Al-Akhbar focused on the latest governmental decision to improve medical care: a new system of medical insurance, allowing citizens to choose where to seek medical care. The new system will be extended to include citizens in villages, especially in Upper Egypt.
According to Al-Akhbar, the president also asked the Minister of Defense to supervise the building of a hospital in the city of Beni Sueif. The hospital had been overlooked for years and was lacking essential medical equipment.
Al-Akhbar also announced parliament’s plans to increase annual wages for public employees up to 24 percent, in accordance with the president’s national reform plan that figured in his presidential campaign last year.
Al-Masry Al-Youm, meanwhile, focused on a different news angle with its front page featuring news of the opposition including Kefaya and the Muslim Brotherhood.
More than 100 Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated activists were arrested in Alexandria according Al-Masry Al-Youm, apparently in response to the Muslim Brotherhood’s running candidates in Alexandria’s chamber of commerce elections. The government is reportedly blocking the group’s supporters from voting.
Brotherhood sources put the number around 30.
According to Reuters, Egypt's security forces had blockaded the Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters on Sunday in order to “guarantee victory for government-backed candidates.”
“Members of the opposition Islamist movement who were contesting the election said police blocked off the polling station to stop merchants from casting their votes there,” read the Reuters report. “Witnesses said thousands of police deployed in Alexandria and closed off the chamber of commerce where voting was taking place. Traffic was stopped from passing through the area.”
Al-Masry Al-Youm’s front page featured a picture of Kefaya co-founder and leader George Ishaq in tears as he attended a joint conference at the Bar Association to discuss recent incidents of torture at a Cairo police station.
Last week, two Kefaya members were arrested and brutally beaten in custody before their transfer to Tora Mazraa Prison. The two activists had just been released from prison prior to their re-arrest, where they were held for accusations including illegal assembly, hampering traffic in the downtown area and insulting the president of the state.
According to Kefaya’s statement and a letter one of the activists sent from Tora Mazraa, one was sexually abused and “sadistically” assaulted.
Kefaya has resolved to take the activists’ cases to international courts and the United Nations’ rights committee, believing that any complaints to the attorney general “will not yield to any benefits.” Isaac had called the prosecutor “a collaborator with the regime.”

Link: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1714