Cairo: 24 September 2018
The Arabic Network for human Rights Information (ANHRI) said today that security forcers’ storming and seizure of “Al- Mesryoon” newspaper yesterday afternoon has eradicated a new beam light of independent and nonpartisan journalism so darkness has become prevalent in Egypt.
The seizure of “Al- Mesryoon” newspaper and website , even if it was under a legal guise by allegedly implementing the decision of the Funds Seizure and Management Committee which is pointedly active nowadays, is still a spurious and fabricated guise; as it aims at putting the newspaper under the state’s control like other media outlets. The move also constitutes a confiscation of what is left from independent journalism to silence it and turn it into a mouthpiece of the state to support and promote its policies, turning a blind eye to the Journalists Syndicate Law as well as the conscience clause which prevents imposing different editorial policies on journalists.
Yesterday afternoon, the security forces broke into the headquarters of “Al- Mesryoon” newspaper, detained the journalists and employees therein- more than five people (journalists and administrators), including Mahmoud Sultan, executive editor of Al Al- Mesryoon website and newspaper- and confiscated their cell phones. One of the officers checked the journalists and workers’ mobile phones and identification cards. A committee affiliated to the Ministry of Justice also exhibited the newspaper’s movables, filed a communiqué with these assets and searched the computres; in implementation of the decision issued by the Funds Seizure and Management Committee on September 11, 2018 to seize Al- Mesryoon company.
After the committee finished its work, it handed over the headquarters of Al Masryoun website to a committee of officials at the governmental Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper to take over the management of the confiscated newspaper. The committee also held a meeting with Mahmoud Sultan to impose its editorial policy on the newspaper in the upcoming period.
A lawyer from ANHRI has met with the newspaper’s journalists and the editor-in-chief, after learning that the committee has prevented the morning-shift journalists in the newspaper’s headquarters from leaving their workplace after end of their shifts, and that they had to stay till the night shift in order to attend a meeting to be informed with new editorial policies and regulations in the coming period.
ANHRI said, “Newspapers and websites that were not muzzled through a gag order have been muzzled through seizure, confiscation and the imposing of new editorial policies, in a way that Egypt has become a dark country that is completely lacking an independent journalism”.
It’s worth mentioning that the last year has witnessed a huge expansion in the blocking of news and human rights websites, whether Egyptian, regional or international, whose number exceeded 500. This move is in conjunction with the expansion of seizure and confiscation decisions, most of which were issued by a committee that is deemed by many = and some others by a non-specialized court, without serious investigations or having defense or due process, so that the vicious circle has been recently met by issuing a series of laws regarding the control of media, censorship and intimidation of Internet users.
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