The journalist Taher Mahmoud Taher was recently sentenced to one year in prison for libelling imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour and his wife in April 2005, when Nour challenged President Hosni Mubarak in the Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential elections. But Nour, who is serving a five-year sentence on what he says are baseless fraud charges, asked the court to drop the custodial sentence because he does not approve of jailing journalists for publishing offences. Taher, who was working for a little known Cairo newspaper called the Voice of Boulaq Abul-Ela, also received a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,800).
The question of press freedom in Egypt has again come under debate. Although some commentators believe that the press still has a margin of freedom, many others argue that the past few years have been marked by a regression in terms of freedom of expression. Reporters Without Borders showed Egypt ranking 146 out of 169 states with respect to indicators of press freedom.
Oppressive practice
Among the most significant incidents signifying oppressive practices on the part of the Egyptian government vis-à-vis journalists is the case of Huwaida Taha, a producer with the Doha-based al-Jazeera satellite channel. When Ms Taha shot an episode on torture in police stations in Egypt, airport police prevented her from boarding her plane to Doha and confiscated several video tapes, a laptop and books they found in her luggage. Moreover, she was sentenced to six months in prison on charges of ‘practising activities harmful to Egypt’s national interests’. In another case, blogger Karim Amer was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on charge of ‘defaming Islam and President Hosni Mubarak’, while Abdel-Moneim Mahmoud, a Muslim Brotherhood member who was writing an Internet feature on human rights in the Arab World, was prevented from flying to Sudan in April 2007. By the same token, four prominent independent journalists were tried for publishing false information harming public order.
Improvement
Watani contacted Salah Eissa, editor-in-chief of the State-owned Al-Qahira which is considered one of the most liberal Cairo papers. Mr Eissa argued that contrary to popular belief the Egyptian press was seeing an improvement rather than a regression. He said the prison sentences received by four journalists were issued by the first court and would most likely be appealed and annulled.
“Regarding the sentence against the blogger Karim Amer, those who stood behind the complaint were his professors rather than the Egyptian authorities,” Mr Eissa said. “If one is to be objective, one would say that the Egyptian press witnessed positive developments over 2007. Al-Badil appeared as the first independent leftist newspaper in Egypt… Other weekly newspapers also came out, including Al-Nahar and Al-Tariq.”
Low wages
Mr Eissa added that inadequacies remained that threatened the freedom of expression, including the low wages paid to journalists, the shortcoming of national press and the current penalty law stipulating imprisonment for publication offences.
Journalists’ Syndicate council member Muhammad Kharaga agrees that the Egyptian press has enjoyed undeniable freedom over the past few years.
“But freedom of expression should take into account national security considerations,” he says. “I wrote several articles for Al-Ahram criticising the Minister of Investment and the governor of the Central Bank, and I didn’t encounter any problems because I followed an objective manner without resorting to defamation or libelling.”
Mr Kharaga believes that the Journalists’ Syndicate should focus on three priorities: the issuance of a freedom of information act, annulling imprisonment publication sentences and improving journalists’ wages.