CAIRO: Editor-in-chief of Al-Wafd newspaper, Anwar Al-Hawari, along with Mahmoud Galeb, and Amir Salem – two journalists at the same newspaper – received a two-year jail sentence Monday, for misquoting the Minister of Justice.
Their bail is set at LE 5,000.
A source at Al Wafd newspaper, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the three journalists will remain free until the court rules on their appeal.
Al-Badil s editor Mohammed Sayyed Said is also facing prosecution for writing about President Hosni Mubarak s health, a judicial source said on Tuesday, a day after Washington voiced concern over such trials.
A lawyer brought the case against Said accusing him of spreading false news concerning the state of 79-year-old Mubarak s health. Lawyer Samir Al-Shishtawi, who filed the case with the public prosecutor, is also behind the trial on the same charge of another newspaper editor, Ibrahim Eissa, due to start on Oct. 1.
A group of Egyptian lawyers were also behind the Al Wafd journalists’ trial. According to Agence France-Presse, the lawyers filed the case against the three journalists last January when they quoted Mamdouh Marie, Minister of Justice, as saying that 90 percent of Egyptian judges were not up to the job – a statement he later denied.
“We are not at war, we didn t reveal military secrets. We only did our job as professional journalists, Al-Hawari told AFP after the verdicts were out, insisting on the accuracy of the quote.
Sources from Al-Wafd newspaper said that their co-workers are saddened by the news. “They [the three charged journalists] are colleagues whom we highly appreciate.
Gamal Fahmy, member of the Journalists’ Syndicate board, telephoned in on Al Mehwar’s “90 minutes talk show on Monday and expressed his opposition to the idea that journalists in Egypt are subject to jail sentences.
Fahmy blamed both “the political leadership, and the higher press council [the institution that has the authority to monitor the press] asking them not to gag press freedom.
According to a Journalists’ Syndicate press release, such verdicts are proof that there is a campaign against press freedom in Egypt.
“We must all work on protecting press freedom, which we consider to be one of our biggest achievements.
“We announce our full condemnation of verdict that threatens freedom of expression and which also tars Egypt’s reputation internationally, said the press statement.
The Syndicate’s crisis management council has also called for a general emergency meeting to be held on Wed. Sept. 26 to take action against “the continuous attack on the freedom of the press.
Hossam Bahgat, chairman of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told Daily News Egypt that those sentences are “a continuation of the crackdown on the independent media and peaceful decent opposition.
This decision is a clear indication of the lack “of this regime’s tolerance to any form of peaceful opposition or human rights group, he says.
“The state has launched an offensive against press freedom, Al-Hawari was quoted as saying after he received the verdict.
Local and international rights group have criticized laws allowing imprisonment of journalists.
The White House on Monday voiced deep concern over the spate of jailings.
These latest decisions appear to contradict the Egyptian government s stated commitment to expand democratic rights, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.
Journalists and non-governmental organizations in Egypt should be permitted to carry out their peaceful work in a hospitable environment free from fear of harassment, reprisal, intimidation, and discrimination, it said. Additional reporting by AFP
