CAIRO: The board of Qatar’s Al-Balagh Foundation is expected to vote on whether to keep the Islam Online (IOL) office in Egypt or move it to Doha within 15 days.
IOL staff continued their strike, which began last Monday, and conducted their Friday prayers at IOL premises in Sixth of October city. Employees are conducting the sit-in in shifts to ensure that there is always a presence.
Additionally staffers maintain that content continues to be removed from the website, with the English and Arabic archives being erased at a sustained rate.
“It seems the board as a whole wants IOL to be moved to Qatar and they’re still removing content, IOL Radio Editor Bibi-Aisha Wadvalla told Daily News Egypt, “so we’re waiting to hear when the board meets and what will happen”If they do that, what everyone wants is adequate compensation, she added, “however what people really want is keeping IOL as it is, with no editorial interference from the board in Qatar.
Qatar’s Al-Balagh Foundation funds the IOL website.
Recent events had indicated that the 330 employees of IOL in Egypt were to be let go, but matters took a turn Wednesday night when the board of Al-Balagh, headed by Sheikh Yousef El-Qaradawi, voted to suspend the membership of two members who it has been alleged were behind the plans to relocate the office to Qatar.
Ibrahim Al-Ansari and Ali El-Emady were the two members suspended, but IOL employees stated that they had refused to acquiesce to the board’s demands, and in a press conference given later, stated that they were not accepting the board’s decision and intended to continue their plans.
IOL employees had walked out Monday after warnings of mass layoffs and employee investigations by Al-Balagh. It was also announced that the company contract, which expires at the end of March, would not be renewed.
A total of 300 employees submitted their resignations Tuesday after being told it was the only way to ensure they would receive their severance packages. On Wednesday employees continued their strike because the terms of the severance packages had not been defined.
Earlier 250 employees had signed and sent a petition to El-Qaradawi bemoaning what they perceived as board interference in the editorial content of the site, which had grown from a purely theological website to a more comprehensive one that included news and commentaries.
