CAIRO: An Egyptian court on Sunday fined a television agency boss LE 150,000 ($27,000) after his company broadcast images of food rioters tearing down portraits of President Hosni Mubarak in April.
The court fined Nader Gohar, who owns the Cairo News Company, LE 100,000 for operating a broadcast network without the necessary permits and LE 50,000 for operating unlicensed broadcasting equipment, Gohar told AFP.
The case was brought following a complaint by the government-owned Egyptian Radio and Television Union, which owns all broadcast signals in Egypt.
Gohar, who could have faced up to five years in prison after broadcasting images of Mubarak posters being torn down during deadly riots in April, said his equipment had been confiscated, effectively putting him out of business.
I m not happy with the sentence. [The judge] didn t give me a prison sentence because they know it would be a shame for them, so they make me pay money and confiscate the equipment to stop me broadcasting.
Gohar said the ruling meant he was almost out of business.
We re going to appeal. We expect another six months of trials and in the meantime I cannot work.
Three civilians were killed by police during two days of rioting in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla on April 6-7.
Demonstrations called to protest rising food prices turned violent when police used rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas on protesters who tore down billboard images of Mubarak.
Footage of the posters being torn down – a crime against the president under Egyptian law – and the subsequent violence could be seen on many television stations and on the Internet. -AFP
