Journos jailed for libel
2005-04-18 08:18
Cairo, Egypt - The Cairo Criminal Court on Sunday sentenced three journalists to one year in prison for libelling the housing minister, despite a year-old announcement by the president that he would scrap the law that allows such imprisonment.
Alaa al-Ghatrifi, Abdel Nasser al-Zoheiry and Youssef al-Oumy were sentenced in absentia to prison terms and fines of 10, 000 Egyptian pounds (about R10 900) each.
The three, who work for the daily al-Masri al-Youm newspaper, wrote last year that Housing Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Sulieman's house has been searched as part of a corruption investigation related to his brother-in-law, and that the minister's position was put on hold.
The Egyptian Cabinet issued a statement saying the report was false and Suleiman filed a complaint with the prosecutor general.
The sentence was criticised by other journalists and by prominent political activist Hisham Qassem.
"One year in prison, this is too much. They are junior reporters, in their 20s," said Qassem, who runs the independent al-Masri al-Youm newspaper.
He said the sentence "should be the press syndicate's battle to abolish the law that allows imprisoning journalists and will be legally fought by the paper," said
A statement by the Journalists Syndicate expressed "shock and anger at the issuing of such a sentence at a time when journalists are expecting the concerned authorities to abolish the imprisonment of journalists."
The Group of Democratic Development, an Egyptian human rights group, also condemned the move in a statement. "The continuation of imprisonment of journalists is violation of the freedom of expression, which contradicts the call for political reform that the Egyptian government is claiming it is doing."
The statement urged President Hosni Mubarak to scrap those laws and for the prosecutor general to halt the implementation of the sentences.
In February 2004, the pro-government newspaper Al-Gumhuriya published Mubarak's decision to revoke the section of the press law that allowed journalists to be imprisoned on charges related to what they write. However, parliament has not yet approved the change.
Egypt's press law, approved by Mubarak in 1996, stipulates prison sentences of up to two years for journalists convicted of defamation. Local and international human rights groups have in the past criticised the arrest and detention of Egyptian journalists.
- AP