Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009middle east and north africa: egyptt o p developments»»Authorities block Web sites critical of thegovernment, the king, and Islam.»»Officials pursue politicized courtcomplaints against critical reporters.key statistic1,040Web sites that theMinistry of Informationordered censored in September.past decade: Steps toward reform and transparency have been followed by stepsback toward repression. Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa replaced his more conservativefather in 1999 as emir and proclaimed himself king in 2002. In responseto decades-long demands from the country’s dispossessed Shiite majority, he ledthe institution of significantreforms in 2001 thatincluded the release of politicalprisoners, the returnof exiles, and the draftingof a new constitution thatresurrected parliament afterthree decades of dormancy.After the reformsof 2001, Bahrain’s mediaunderwent a revival as fiveArabic and two Englishnewspapers began tacklingsensitive topics suchas human rights, corruption, and discrimination against Shiite citizens. Facingthe emergence of critical news media, the government embraced legislative toolsto suppress content.Despite constitutional guarantees for press freedom, government agenciescontinued to enforce the heavy-handed Press and Publications Law of 2002,which prescribes prison terms of up to five years for material considered an affrontto Islam or the king, and content perceived as undermining state securityor the monarchy. The appointed upper chamber of parliament has twice proposedpress law amendments—most recently in 2008—intended to mitigate itsharshest provisions, but an elected lower chamber dominated by conservative elementshas consistently turned back those proposals.Government officials pursued politicized criminal complaints against twojournalists who had produced investigative reports on alleged public corruption.In each case, the government appeared less intent on jailing the journalists thanon harassing them through repeated court summonses.Maryam al-Shrooqi, a reporter for the independent daily Al-Wasat, wasfound guilty in September on insult charges stemming from a 2008 article thatalleged religious discrimination in the hiring policies of the Department of CivilServices. The department had filed a criminal complaint, accusing her of insultand the more serious charges of fabrication and defamation. The Supreme CriminalCourt eventually dismissed the most serious charges and fined al-Shrooqi 50dinars (US$133). The court also ordered Al-Wasat to print a summary of theverdict in the same place in the paper as the original article. An appeal was pendingin late year.Lamees Dhaif, a columnist for the privately owned daily Al-Waqt, was alsosummoned to court on charges of insulting the judiciary in a series, “The Dossierof Great Shame,” published in February. The pieces detailed alleged bias againstwomen in family courts, reflecting one of the unfulfilled political reforms of 2001.The Supreme Judicial Council, the judiciary’s highest administrative body, hadlodged a criminal complaint against Dhaif after she refused a judiciary official’sdemands to write an apology and an article praising the court system. The prosecutionwas suspended in September but can be resurrected at any time.EGYPTAuthorities followed familiar tactics to control news media,pursuing politicized court cases, imposing fines, using regulatory tools, and harassingjournalists. With Egypt seeing a burgeoning community of journalisticbloggers, authorities moved aggressively to monitor and control online activity.At least three online journalists were jailed when CPJ conducted its annual censusof imprisoned journalists on December 1.In February, a judge in Cairo fined five journalists for violating a court orderbanning news coverage of the murder trial of Egyptian businessman HishamTalaat Mostafa, who was eventually convicted in the killing of Lebanese singerSuzanne Tamim. News reports said that fines of 10,000 pounds (US$1,803)were levied against editor Magdi al-Galad and reporters Yusri al-Badri and Faruqal-Dissuqi of the independent daily Al-Masry al-Youm, along with editor Abbasal-Tarabili and reporter Ibrahim Qaraa of the opposition Al-Wafd. Sayyid AbuZaid, lawyer for the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, told CPJ that similar chargeshad been filed, but dropped, against the state-owned dailies Al-Ahram and AkhbarAl-Youm.After highly publicized proceedings, a Cairo appellate court in Februarystruck down one-year jail terms against four editors but upheld 20,000-pound(US$3,540) fines against each of them, according to news reports. The four editorshad been charged in 2007 with publishing “false information likely to disturbpublic order” in connection with stories that raised questions about PresidentHosni Mubarak’s health at a time when he had been out of public view. The fineswere imposed against Ibrahim Eissa of the daily Al-Dustour, Adel Hamouda ofthe weekly Al-Fajr, Wael el-Abrashi of the weekly Sawt al-Umma, and AbdelHalim Kandil of the weekly Al-Karama.A principal in the Cairo News Company, which provides production ser-2082 0 9