Egypt took a lead role in developing a regional charter designed to restrict satellite broadcasting throughout the Arab world. At the behest of President Hosni Mubarak, parliament extended the 27-year-old Emergency Law, keeping intact for two additional years a key tool for stifling free expression. In this environment, journalists continued to fend off a rash…
New York, February 2, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a Cairo appeals court decision to strike down a one-year jail term against four editors, but condemns that the conviction stands for criticizing President Hosni Mubarak and his top aides.
Dear President-elect Obama: I am writing as chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists to seek your leadership in reaffirming America’s role as a staunch defender of press freedom throughout the world. Journalists in many countries who risk their lives and liberty upholding the values of free expression look to the United States for support.
New York, October 15, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Egyptian court’s decision on Saturday to levy steep fines against an editor and reporter for an independent weekly that published a satirical piece about a prominent cleric.
New York, September 26, 2008―The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the ongoing detention of a reporter for the independent daily Al-Dustour. Hossam Al Wakeel, 20, was arrested on Wednesday while covering protests that erupted after “the arbitrary closure” of the Al Jazeera School in the Al Ajami district in Alexandria, his lawyer, Khalaf…
Many in Egypt still dread the month of September. Twenty-seven years ago, the government arbitrarily jailed hundreds of civil society activists of different political and religious leanings, including journalists. The capricious crackdown, which occurred only a few weeks before President Anwar Sadat’s assassination on October 6, 1981, by a radical Islamist was spurred by unsubstantiated…