The Press Syndicate said Monday that it filed a complaint to the Prosecutor-General against the president of the Zamalek Club, claiming that he has banned hundreds of journalists and their families from entering the club despite their legal memberships.
In a statement published on its website Monday, the syndicate said the club’s president unlawfully banned hundreds of journalists and their families who are members of the club from gaining access to it.
The syndicate explained that it had to take a step against such “repeated” and “unsympathetic” and “unjustified” actions against journalists, and that it might further escalate measures if the issue remains unresolved.
In May, recently elected syndicate leader Abdel Mohsen Salama met with him at the Zamalek Club as the two ensured positive mutual relations, but tensions between the syndicate and the club’s president, who has gained notoriety in the press for regular disrespectful public comments, are not new and continual.
The president of the club aggressively rejected any criticism of his performance and accused journalists of defamation. A couple of years ago, the syndicate had ordered newspapers not to refer to him by name, but by his title.
In 2015, The Egyptian Chamber of Audiovisual Media Industry even banned him from appearing on TV channels, calling for the boycotting of his conferences and forbidding the coverage of his news, after he made hostile comments against TV host Lamees El-Hadidy and CBC channel owner Mohamed Amin.
