Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-governmental organization of journalists dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, is writing to protest the libel convictions handed down last week against Magdy Hussein, editor in chief of the biweekly Al-Sha’b,Saleh Bedeiwi, a reporter for the newspaper, and staff cartoonist Essam Eddine Hanafi.
On July 1, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met in Washington, D.C. with President Clinton-the Egyptian leader’s third such visit to the White House in the last four years. The scheduled meeting came at a time when Egyptian authorities stepped up their attacks against the country’s independent and opposition press.
1999 February 7, 1999 Abbas al-Tarabili, Al-Wafd, LEGAL ACTION Muhammad Abdel Alim, Al-Wafd, LEGAL ACTION Between February 7 and February 8, al-Tarabili, co-editor in chief of the opposition daily Al-Wafd, and Abdel Alim, a reporter for the paper, were questioned by state security prosecutors on charges of “publishing false information to harm public interests, inciting public opinion,…