05 Dec 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
The life of a two-week old English-language newspaper, Egypt Independent, was abruptly put on hold last week after its Editor-in-Chief, Magdi El-Gallad, decided to censor an opinion piece by US historian and author Dr Robert Springborg that was critical of the military and its leadership.
The article, entitled “Is Tantawi reading the public pulse correctly?”, said that Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who leads Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), could share the same fate as former president Hosni Mubarak and find himself in jail as a result of popular discontent with his management of the revolution’s transition process.
“Many in the military resent the reputation of their institution being abused by the Field Marshal and his 19 colleagues on the SCAF … the present rumblings of discontent among junior officers, Chief of Staff General Sami Anan’s greater popularity than the Field Marshal in the military and among Egyptians as a whole, and intensified pressure from the US could all result in the Field Marshal sharing President Mubarak’s fate,” Dr Springborg wrote in the
original version of the article.
Dr Springborg concluded by saying that “discontented officers not in the SCAF might decide that a coup within the coup would be the best way to save the honour of the country and their institution.”
This open critique of the military and implications of rumblings within army ranks crossed a major red line in Egypt’s press freedom: criticism of the military.
After the opinion piece was censored and toned down, the distribution of 20,000 copies of Egypt Independent’s second issue, due to come out on 1 December, was still prevented.
Egypt Independent was the new name adopted for Al-Masry Al-Youm’s English language edition, which has existed online for two years. Its management is affiliated with the privately-owned Arabic language daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, a widely read and popular newspaper in Egypt.
The printed version has been put on hold for now. But, the life of its daily online version, Al- Masry Al-Youm English, continues.
Press freedom under SCAF
The whole experience has brought to the fore the fact that overt criticism of the military remains a red line with serious consequences that few are willing to cross.
Magdi El-Galad presumably has close ties with the military as he was recently offered, though turned down, the position of information minister in the cabinet of SCAF-appointed Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri.
An old-fashioned mentality also remains about the power of the printed press versus its online counterpart. Some think that had Dr. Springborg’s piece been published online, it may not have been censored.
This is ironic given the fact that the internet, especially Facebook and Twitter, played important roles in initiating the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt last winter, and continue to be essential information-sharing tools.
But it was a newspaper article published in the Arabic-language daily, Al-Shorouk, written by activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah that landed him in jail in October.
He wrote about the death of activist Mina Daniel during the army’s attack on peaceful Coptic protestors at Maspero, an area of Cairo known for housing the state television building. This left at least 29 people dead.
Alaa remains in a military jail, alongside blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, whose critical writings of the military also led to his imprisonment. He has been on a hunger strike for over 100 days.
Dina Abdel Rahman, a television presenter on the privately-owned Dream TV, was also fired in July for reporting on a newspaper article, which was critical of the SCAF.
Dina’s incident, as well as that of Egypt Independent, raise fears among journalists, and those concerned with freedom of the press that while under Mubarak it was mainly the state that intervened to curb criticism in the press, now the owners of private media, supposedly the freest in Egypt, and editors themselves are practicing self-censorship at the behest of the military.
But “self-censorship has always existed”, Naila Hamdy, assistant professor at the American University in Cairo’s department of journalism, told Index. “There were a couple of months of real freedom after 25 January, and although some may have reverted back to self-censorship, journalists are still bolder than they were before the revolution.”
She added: “Media professionals might hold back, because they decide it is better than getting shut down completely. It might be better to push the envelope slightly, than with no publication at all.”
And, how far the envelope can continue to be pushed depends on the success of the transition process from military to civilian rule, a process underway as Egypt conducts parliamentary elections.
02 Nov 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Prolific Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah was detained on Sunday after refusing to be interrogated by a military investigator, insisting on his right to be tried before a civil court. Rasha Abdulla reports
Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (@alaa) was jailed on 30 October for 15 days pending investigation after refusing to be interrogated by a military investigator on charges related to the now infamous Maspiro events, in which over 20 people died and many more were injured after a brutal crackdown on a Christian-majority demonstration.
Alaa was called in for investigation last week. He was active in the aftermath of the event, having spent two days at the morgue alongside other activists in solidarity with victims’ families, while trying to convince them to agree to autopsies and ensure the reports of said autopsies were correctly documented. He detailed the experience in a piece for Al Shorouk newspaper (a translation of which can be found here), in which he reminded everyone that solidarity is the solution to Egypt’s problems. Alaa has been detained before, in 2006 he spent 45 days in jail, a piece he wrote from behind bars was published today entitled “A Return to Mubarak’s Jails.”
Alaa was in San Francisco when he was asked to report last week. His father, veteran human rights lawyer Ahmed Seif El Islam Abdel Fattah, appeared in court and asked for the case to be postponed. Alaa returned to Cairo on Saturday afternoon and appeared in court on Sunday morning. The military prosecutor filed five charges against him including demonstrating, inciting to demonstrate, assaulting military personnel, destroying public property, and stealing military weapons. Alaa, whose sister Mona Seif (@monasosh) is one of the founders of the No to Military Trials for Civilians campaign refused to recognise the authority of an civic judge. He pointed out that the army is facing law suits accusing it as a defendant in the same case, which constitutes a clear conflict of interest. As a result he was detained, pending further military investigation.
Alaa has been active on the blogging scene in Egypt since 2004, when he and his wife Manal Hassan (@manal) started the award-winner blog and aggregator Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket. Both bloggers fought the Mubarak regime online and offline, breaking cases of corruption and police brutality that were later picked up by the traditional media.
Many believe Alaa’s detention is a warning to other bloggers and political activists, a ratcheting up of the series of violations against free expression committed by Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). The violations include summons sent to journalists Rasha Azab (@rashapress) and her editor, Adel Hammouda, over Azab’s coverage of a meeting between the No to Military Trials group and SCAF in which allegations that SCAF subjected female demonstrators to virginity tests were discussed. Later, when journalist and blogger Hossam El Hamalawy discussed SCAF on a popular Egyptian talk show, he and his show host, Reem Magued, were both called in before the military prosecutor. That visit was later described by the prosecutor as “a chat.” Other bloggers that have been interrogated and/or detained including Asmaa Mahfouz, Loai Nagati, and Maikel Nabil, who has been on a hunger strike since 22 August.
A military court sentenced Maikel Nabil to three years for “insulting the military & spreading false reports aiming to disturb public security.” The charges relate to a May blog entitled “The army and the people are not one hand,” in which he listed the army’s alleged wrongdoings, including the virginity tests claim. Maikel, who has a heart condition, was tried 12 days after being arrested on 28 March.
Other free expression violations have been committed on the satellite television front. In recent months, army police forces have raided the offices of Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr several times, as well as 25TV channel. Al Jazeera Mubasher has since been banned from broadcasting from Egypt, accused of incomplete licensing procedures. Most recently, popular television host Yosri Fouda chose to indefinitely suspend his highly-viewed political talk show because he felt he was under pressure to not report things as he sees them and did not want to force himself through “self-censorship.” He told the BBC that he did not want to “take the narrative of the army” and would rather step back in protest of the military rulers’ attempts to “stifle free expression.”
The No to Military Trials campaign, which has been actively lobbying on behalf of all military detainees, has published a press release condemning Alaa’s arrest in the strongest possible words, and asking for his immediate release, together with the other 12,000 victims of military trials in Egypt, who should at least be retried before a civil court. The group called upon Egyptians to refuse to cooperate with military interrogation and to support the cause of No to Military Trials for Civilians. You can read the press release in its entirety here. A press conference by the group is scheduled for tomorrow, 3 November, at 2pm Cairo time.
Rasha Abdulla is an associate professor at the Journalism and Mass Communication Department of the American University in Cairo. An advocate for freedom of expression, Abdulla has published several books and writings on Internet use and digital activism in Egypt and throughout the Arab World. You can follow her on Twitter:@RashaAbdulla
22 Sep 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Egypt’s post-revolutionary honeymoon appears to be over. The country’s euphoria and pride at the historic public uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak has given way to a summer of rising pessimism.
Relations have deteriorated between activist groups and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) — the collection of senior generals that has ruled the country since Mubarak’s forced February 11 resignation. Despite promises of a smooth transition to civilian rule, the military has proven itself to be slow to implement meaningful reform and remarkably thin-skinned regarding public criticism. Journalists and activists who publicly criticise the SCAF’s performance have been summoned for questioning and at least one blogger has been jailed for the crime of defaming the military.
After protesters attacked the Israeli embassy on September 9, the SCAF responded with a warning to the country’s feisty post-revolutionary media. Minister of Information Ossama Heikal invoked Mubarak era rhetoric in promising that any newspaper or channel that “endangers the stability and security of the country” would be firmly dealt with.
Alarmingly, the SCAF seems to have inherited the Mubarak regime’s fixation with Al-Jazeera. On September 11, security forces raided the offices of Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr (Al-Jazeera direct Egypt) a specialised 24/7 Egypt news channel that Al-Jazeera founded after the revolution. Two days earlier the channel had broadcast wall-to-wall coverage of the Israeli embassy assault and the violent street clashes that ensued.
As of late September the SCAF had finally begun to set dates; fresh parliamentary elections that will herald the first step towards that long-promised transition will begin in late November and continue for a month. But skepticism and, at times, hostility towards the SCAF’s intentions is still running high
Among the activists, things aren’t much better. The fragile unity between Islamists and secularists that helped personify the revolution didn’t last long. By mid summer, both sides were exchanging recriminations, with the secular activist forces charging that the Muslim Brotherhood was railroading the country into early elections where they would hold a natural organisational advantage.
In mid-September, Wael Ghonim, the Google Executive who became an iconic face of the revolution, made headlines by writing an open letter to Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, the Mubarak-era Defense Minister who heads the SCAF. Ghonim’s letter criticised the pace of reform and the lack of a definitive transitional timetable. His complaints were not new, but the source was significant. Ghonim, was one of the most prominent voices among the hardcore Tahrir activists who still professed faith in the SCAF’s leadership long after many of his compatriots had turned against the generals. Following the revolution, many of his own fellow revolutionaries wrote Ghonim off as a SCAF apologist. His emergence as a public critic heralds a potentially volatile new phase that could culminate in a second revolution.
Among ordinary citizens, a mood of post-revolutionary fatigue was setting in. In addition to what seemed to be a looming new confrontation with SCAF, crime was on the rise, the economy was still sputtering and the newfound freedom of expression seemed to produce a lot of people shouting accusations at each other.
It is too early to tell where this is going. And there are many on the scene to retain an enduring sense of optimism for the future. Alaa Al Aswany, author of the best selling novel The Yacoubian Building and a longtime courageous political columnist, says the SCAF is in danger of bungling the post-Mubarak era.
“I don’t want to speculate about about (SCAF’s) intentions. But their decisions have been against the Egyptian revolution,” Aswany told me.
The author openly rejects the idea that the SCAF could succeed in derailing the transition to democratic civilian rule.
The Military Council is not going to rule Egypt. If they try, they’re making a fatal mistake. Because there’s an element that has changed, the most important element — the Egyptian people. They will never accept it again
Aswany, despite his criticisms of SCAF’s performance, sounded sympathetic with the generals—who didn’t ask to be in this position and seem to detest being suddenly thrust into a noisily democratic Egypt where their own decisions are subject to public debate.
“You’re talking about a military mentality. It’s the first time anyone has tried to discuss anything with them,” Aswany said. “A normal military general, he’s either giving orders or receiving orders and carrying them out. The idea that we can sit down together and I tell him, ‘This decision was wrong.’ It’s outside of their culture.”
Others remain optimistic, describing Egypt’s rocky post-Mubarak months as a necessary process. “What you’re seeing now is a lot of pus coming out of the wound,” Mohammed ElBaradei told me. “It’s natural and it has to happen before the real healing can begin.”
Ashraf Khalil’s first book, Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of the Nation, will be published in January 2012 by St Martin’s Press
14 Sep 11 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
The Cairo offices of Al-Jazeera Mubasher (Direct), an affiliate of the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera International news network, were ransacked by Egyptian security forces early this week. In a raid on the channel reminiscent of an earlier raid on Al-Jazeera International’s Cairo offices by Mubarak’s security forces during the mass uprisings last February, equipment was seized and a studio engineer was detained. Transmission by the network — devoted almost entirely to live coverage of developments in post- revolutionary Egypt, including street protests — was abruptly brought to a halt. But programming resumed a few hours later from Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha.
The channel’s website quotes an unnamed security source as saying that, prior to the raid, several complaints had been filed by residents of the Giza neighborhood where the channel’s offices are located. The residents accused the network of being noisy and disturbing public peace. The source added that during an ensuing probe, it was discovered that the channel had been running without a license in violation of Egyptian media laws.
The channel’s lawyer defended the network, saying Al-Jazeera Mubasher had applied for a licence before it began operating in March, but had not received any response from the Egyptian authorities.
Earlier, Egypt’s newly appointed Minister of Information, Osama Heikal, had issued a stern warning that the government would deal firmly with stations that “endanger the stability and security of the country.” Media analysts fear the raid and the minister’s warning signal a slide back to the repressive ways of the Mubarak regime.
The decision was met with an outcry from journalists. “This is unacceptable in the new Egypt,” said Ibrahim Badawy, a journalist working for the independent El Youm El Sabe. “The raid is a serious breach of a basic human right — the right to free expression. If we remain silent, the government will not stop at this but will take more measures to curb media freedom.”
In the same speech broadcast on Egyptian State TV, Heikal announced that the government would discontinue the issuance of permits for new stations, citing concerns about broadcasts that incite violence. The announcement came after fiery protests in front of the Israeli Embassy last Friday turned deadly. Three protesters were killed and nearly 1000 others were injured after security forces fired tear gas and plankets to disperse the protesters.
Wealthy businessmen closely connected to the previous regime had a monopoly on ownership of independent satellite channels during the Mubarak era. They used their privately-owned channels to further their own business interests and stuck rigidly to the government line, spreading the same government propaganda disseminated by state-owned TV channels.
After the uprisings that forced Mubarak’s authoritarian regime out, there were small signs that Egyptian media was finally changing course, as independent TV and radio channels and publications began to emerge. Most declare “objectivity, clarity and free expression” as their stated goal. Some, like the January 25 channel launched by veteran producer Mohamed Gohar after the revolution, claim that their motive is the creation of a people to people channel — one that allows Egyptians to see themselves for the first time. “For a long time the underprivileged members of society were hidden and not given a platform to air their views. But no more,” Gohar told me.
The new January 25 channel — named after the date Egypt’s longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak was ousted — is almost completely run by young revolutionaries themselves. Although critics describe it as amateurish, the channel is as revolutionary in content and form as the young activists themselves who operate it. A live cooking show presented by a former cook and housemaid turned celebrity chef is just one striking example of how things are changing in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Meanwhile activist and media specialist Hisham Qassem — who is in the process of establishing a new media group that will produce TV and radio broadcasts, an online wire service and a daily newspaper — described the government decision not to grant licenses to new media outlets as a “disappointing development.” He added that, with parliamentary elections less than two months away, it was a knee-jerk reaction from Egypt’s tense military rulers who wish to avoid any kind of incitement.
Qassem however pointed out that the decision may have an opposite effect. With the mainstream media’s credibility at an all- time low, the crackdown may give the politicised social media the chance of creating the very tensions the SCAF is hoping to avoid. “The crackdown on media freedom could very well lead to an information meltdown where rumours dominate,” he warned.
Both Qassem and Gohar believe that the new atmosphere for free expression in the post-revolutionary era will prevail. “The trend is irreversible and with the fear barrier now broken, there is little the government can do to silence the ‘free voices’ or curtail free expression,” said an optimistic Qassem.
Journalist and television anchor Shahira Amin resigned her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV on February. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
