CAIRO: The Hisham Mubarak Law Center and the legal support unit at the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) challenged the Egyptian prosecutor general’s decision to impose a publishing ban on Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim’s murder case.
Both the Hisham Mubarak law Center as well as ANHRI deemed the ban contradictory with Articles 47 and 148 of the constitution that guarantee freedom of expression and press freedom, respectively.
The ban also conflicts with Article 19 of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, according to the organizations.
“The prosecutor general’s decision is unconstitutional and provoking, it has no foundation and breaks every law related to freedom of expression and exchange of information, Ahmed Ragheb, lawyer at the Hisham Mubarak Law Center told Daily News Egypt.
The organizations also challenged the publishing ban imposed on the same murder case in Dubai.
Ragheb said that according to the misdemeanors penal code, a decision to ban publishing must be attributed to either a threat to general interest or danger to national security which is not clear in this case.
Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud imposed a publishing ban on an issue of the independent daily Al-Dostour earlier this month after it ran an article under the headline “Was a prominent Egyptian figure involved in the murder of Suzanne Tamim?
The next day the editorial staff members of Al-Dostour were summoned for questioning by a public prosecution office in Giza, in connection with the publishing of an article about the murder of Tamim, whose decapitated body was found in her Dubai apartment on July 2.
Widespread rumors linked the murder of Tamim to an Egyptian construction guru, saying that he paid one of his body guards to do the job and then fled the country.
The investigation is still underway and no date has been set for a trial.
