Sunday, July 09, 2006

Daily Star: The Elusive Myth of Press Freedom

This Op-Ed piece is from Mirette Mabrouk, the Publisher of The Daily Star-Egypt. The Star is the most well-respected English paper in the Middle East, and publishes two daily versions, one focusing on Egypt and the other on Lebanon.

Mabrouk's essay is spot-on. The specter of tighter restrictions on freedom of expression hovers over Egypt, and after recent protests in favour of an independent judiciary ended in violent crack-downs everyone seems to be waiting for the next foot to drop, or the next boot to angrily stomp.

Next Sunday there is a scheduled protest outside of Parliament against the addition of the new speech-related offenses into the Penal Code. I am curious to see how the regime and the military respond.

The Elusive Myth of Press Freedom

By Mirette F. MabroukFirst Published: July 8, 2006

We're Egyptians, we like fairy tales. Aly Baba and the 40 Thieves, Joha, One ‎Thousand and One Nights.

Oh, and the most modern of our fairy tales; the one about social and political reform.

Most Egyptians know that one; it's ongoing. If only Scheherazade'd had access to that ‎one, she'd have been busy for a lot longer than the 1001 nights.

One of the world's oldest civilizations, Egypt's been through the gamut of social and ‎political experiences. The democratic one, however, with its resident trappings of civil ‎rights and political freedom, judicial independence and effective non-governmental ‎institutions, is still eluding us.

When President Hosni Mubarak pushed through a referendum on an amendment to ‎article 76 on multi-candidate presidential elections, people held their breath. While the ‎referendum and the decision were slammed by various parties, there was no doubt that ‎they led to a first in this country's history; multi-party presidential elections last ‎September 7. There were drawbacks, of course. The other nine candidates were a ‎motley crew, many of whom were known only to their closest friends. And there was ‎never any doubt about the outcome. Mubarak swept to victory with the kind of ‎majority that most presidents in democratic countries see only in their sweetest ‎dreams. But the elections themselves were, by the account of non-partisan observers ‎‎(many of whom would have been delighted to find irregularities) were clean. For a ‎brief few weeks, Egyptians dared to hope. ‎Of course, less than two months later, the parliamentary elections, drenched in ‎violence and allegations of corruption and vote-rigging dashed those hopes. But at ‎least we were back on familiar ground.

The problem with hopes of freedom or democracy is that they're like mosquitoes in ‎summer, they just won't go away. No matter how much you swat, they continue to ‎hum persistently in your ear.

The government's ears must be ringing. First it was the whole embarrassing debacle ‎with the Judges Club, almost 2000 members are voicing that irritating notion that the ‎judiciary should be independent. That's an ongoing saga, with two judges having been ‎hauled in front of a court for voicing allegations of corruption, including vote-rigging, ‎in the parliamentary elections. And a few days ago, the news came that that much-‎hyped amendments to the Press Law had been rejected by the Journalists' Syndicate.

Egypt is one of very few countries that allows for imprisonment over libels (most ‎countries limit themselves with back-breaking fines). In Egypt, under the 1996 law, ‎libel or defamation are punishable by a LE 1,000 to LE 5,000 fine, or a maximum of ‎one year in prison.

If the subject of the libel is a public official, then the maximum penalty skyrockets to ‎LE 5,000 to LE 20,000 fine and the prison sentence doubles, to two years. It doesn't ‎take a political scientist to draw the conclusion that this might be detrimental to the ‎ability of the press to hold public officials accountable. More disturbingly, there are ‎no clear parameters as to what constitutes `defamation.'

On February 23rd, 2004 Mubarak stood up and said that was a sorry state of affairs, ‎and that journalists should have protection, enabling them to do their jobs without fear ‎of imprisonment.

Over two years later a draft of the new law has been presented by the government. It ‎was hailed by senior National Democratic party (NDP) officials. Among them were Gamal ‎Mubarak and Safwat El-Sherif to be the `positive step toward reform' and ensure `a press ‎victory.'

The Journalists' Syndicate failed to share their view. The law still stipulates a ‎summary prison term of one to two years, but it's now a maximum LE 30,000 fine – or ‎prison. Journalists may be protected from a prison sentence, under exceptional ‎circumstances, the `exceptional circumstances' have not been defined. In fact, ‎according to Sayyed Abuzeid, lawyer to the Journalists' Syndicate, article 302 of the ‎previous law, which allowed for the provision of absence of malice, has been revoked. ‎Absence of malice is where a journalist says that they have no personal axe to grind, or ‎in other words, it isn't personal – it's just business.

On average, journalism is not a particularly well-paid profession and few are going to ‎be able to drag LE 30,000 out of their pockets. Their papers will be just as loath to do ‎so and Egypt still hasn't caught onto libel insurance in a big way. And if one ignores ‎crippling debt, one still has the threat of punishment hanging over one's head merely ‎for doing one's job.

Reaction to the draft law has been intense: the Syndicate is frothing at the mouth. Seven independent papers are going on a one-day strike on Sunday July 9 to protest ‎and even the state-owned papers can't help being appalled. ‎‎“Down with journalism and long live corruption,” wailed Ahmed Ragab in Al Ahram.

Mohamed Ali Ibrahim of Al-Gomhouriya was more tentative in his phrasing but ‎dismally precise in the notion he presented. “The way in which new punishments have ‎been sought makes journalists doubt the government's intentions.”

It's delicately phrased, but it's a safe bet that most journalists already doubt the ‎government's intentions.

It's uncertain what the government is worried about exactly. The average Egyptian has ‎a weary, bone-deep conviction that corruption is a fact of life. They're unlikely to be ‎shocked by anything they read in the paper. And if the government is serious about ‎reform, how can it possibly justify this muzzling of the country's press? If you're ‎studying journalism at university, you'll be taught that one of the functions of the ‎press is its `watch-dog function.' The press is what stands between the people and the ‎abuse of power. If the press cannot watch over public officials, then what is it ‎supposed to warn the public about? Pickpockets and adulterers?

Editor of Al-Dustour Ibrahim Eissa this week received a one year sentence for running ‎an article about a man who is suing the president and his family for abuse of national ‎funds. Hardly surprisingly, the reporter who covered the story for the paper and the ‎man who raised the suit have also been sentenced by the court. Eissa's conviction was ‎for `insulting the president and spreading rumors which threaten public security.' He ‎didn't accuse the president - he covered a lawsuit. In other words, he's been sentenced ‎merely for reporting a fact. It's the most basic tenet of this profession.

‎The whiplash will rake across more backs than Eissa's.

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