Egypt / Middle East & North Africa

EGYPT The government clamped down on political opposition, tried to suppress speculation about the health of President Hosni Mubarak, and waged a steady offensive against critical journalists, bloggers, and foreign media workers. By year’s end, a full-fledged crackdown was under way, with Egyptian courts aggressively prosecuting several of the country’s leading independent editors and writers.…

  Washington, January 22, 2008—In testimony today before the House Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, the Committee to Protect Journalists raised concern about mounting press freedom abuses in U.S. ally nations in the Middle East and urged the U.S. government to prioritize press freedoms in its bilateral relations.  

Detailed accounts of each imprisoned journalist.

New York, November 20, 2007— The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by recent allegations that an Egyptian blogger, jailed earlier this year for his online criticisms, was violently assaulted by inmates and prison guards this month. On November 12, the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and the Hisham Mubarak Center for Law…

New York, October 29, 2007—The criminal libel convictions and one-month jail terms handed down Saturday against journalists for an Egyptian opposition daily are part of a government-organized campaign to silence the press and should be overturned, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The case stems from a complaint filed by lawyers affiliated with the…

Al-Ahram editor Reda Helal disappeared. Now all memory of him may vanish too.

Reda Helal vanished in central Cairo four years ago. Now, even the memory of the prominent state editor has nearly disappeared. Why have the government and the press ignored his case?

New York, September 27, 2007­­―The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that a leading Egyptian editor charged with publishing articles about President Hosni Mubarak’s health will be tried by an emergency state security court. Meanwhile, a Cairo court handed jail terms to the chairman of an independent weekly and four of its journalists. Ibrahim Eissa,…

New York, September 26, 2007­­―The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns this week’s convictions of three editors from an opposition daily, which come amid a flurry of criminal lawsuits filed against the press by lawyers affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party.   A criminal misdemeanor court on Monday convicted Al-Wafd Editor-in-Chief Anwar al-Hawari, Deputy Editor-in-Chief…