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Report: Egypt among Countries Trailing behind in Freedom of Press

The US Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed in its conference held in the Egyptian Press Syndicate that Egypt and Arab countries have legislations that restrict the freedom and may be used to jail journalists like the National Unity Protection Law, Law of State Security and Citizen, Political Liberties Law plus the emergency law which has been enforced since Egyptian president Mubarak assumed office.

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The US Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed in its conference held in the Egyptian Press Syndicate that Egypt and Arab countries have legislations that restrict the freedom and may be used to jail journalists like the National Unity Protection Law, Law of State Security and Citizen, Political Liberties Law plus the emergency law which has been enforced since Egyptian president Mubarak assumed office.

The committee confirmed that Arab governments are campaigning for merely ceremonial amendments on media laws which are used to restrict movement of journalists. The US Committee to Protect Journalists confirmed that Arab governments manipulated the process of reforming the media.

The committee pointed out that Arab governments know very well that their oppressions may harm their international position, so they began to use hidden forms to control over the media.

The US committee presented a report entitled "Attacks on the Press- 2007" which documents hundreds of violations against the freedom of the press in 2007 all over the world including the United States.

The report stated that 2007 was the deadliest year for reporters in more than a decade. 65 journalists were killed on duty last year, including 32 who were killed in Iraq. Iraq was considered the world"s deadliest place for the press for the fifth year in a row and the deadliest even in the modern history of the press.
Deaths among journalists rose in other areas like Palestine where two journalists were killed in Gaza Strip in the midst of an escalating Fatah-Hamas conflict that overshadowed 2007.

In other areas across the region, the freedom of the press has been nder attack in Algeria and even in Yemen where governments have been working for chokeholding the independent press through carrying out criminal trials, detentions, violent assaults, kidnapping and intimidation.

Several other Arab countries saw other scenarios. Independent journalists have become more boldly critic to the governments which have in turn tightened restrictions on them. Governments attempted in 2007 to curb the scope of freedoms gained in fields like the press. Egypt, Morocco and Yemen sent journalists to courts, threw them in prison and even assaulted them.
 
Kamal Al Obaidi, the committee"s representative in the North Africa and Middle East region, confirmed that lacking a judicial independence leads to relapses in the freedom of the press and even adds more restrictions on this freedom, especially as judges are dictated t to issue specific rulings which are issued against journalists.

Al-Obaidi attributed the increasing focus on what is happening in Egypt to the fact that calls for freedom of the press in Egypt do not take place in countries like Qatar or the United Arab Emirates for example.

He also pointed out that licences of establishing newspapers and TV channels are not transparently issued. They are actually issued to government vetted people after they vow not to cross limits.

The committee listed Egypt among countries that have witnessed a huge retreat in the freedom of the press, citing a big increase in the number of aggressions on the press, confirming that the number of journalists facing trials is always on the increase.

The report, discussed by the committee in its annual meeting in the Press Syndicate, said also that:" The Egyptian government has launched a campaign of repression against political opposition and tried to end predictions over the health of President Mubarak ". "The government launched a relentless attack against opposition journalists, bloggers an and Egyptians working with the foreign press", added the report.

"By the end of 2007, an all-out campaign of repression has been carried out. Egyptian courts have been trying top independent editors and journalists". Egyptian authorities seemed to have been trying to tighten limits of the free press and bloggers whose number has mushroomed in 2007.

The report of the US committee pointed out that Egyptian authorities focused primarily on "naughty" independent newspapers which have become an increasing source for worry for top government officials and that they gained a huge and increasing popularity at the expense of the government run newspapers that dropped because of their stagnation and because of the increasing financial and administrative corruption.