3 Apr 2008 | Comment, Middle East and North Africa
Journalist Ibrahim Eissa faces a prison sentence for his criticism of President Mubarak. The government’s intention to intimidate the free press is all too clear, writes Amira Howeidy
On 26 March a Cairo court sentenced Ibrahim Eissa, editor of the independent Al Dostour newspaper, to six months in prison for publishing a series of articles on 79-year-old president Hosni Mubarak’s health.
Eissa has the right to appeal the ruling, which he probably will, knowing all too well that he’ll end up in one of Egypt’s notorious prisons anyway.
This 42-year-old critic of the Mubarak regime still faces at least four other court cases concerning articles deemed ‘insulting’ to figures in the ruling party and, again, the president.
(more…)
1 Dec 2007 | News
Index on Censorship and ARTICLE 19 are alarmed by the continuing assault on press freedom in Egypt. This week, no less than three cases will come to trial. All three represent a serious infringement of the right to free expression. It is the culmination of a year-long campaign of intimidation against journalists and bloggers
Howaida Taha, al Jazeera journalist, was detained in January 2007, while making a documentary on torture in Egypt. Her case comes up on 3 December. The documentary was broadcast on al Jazeera in April and has become a significant testimony of the violations committed by the country’s security apparatus. Ms Taha was sentenced in absentia on the 2 May by al Nozha Felonies Court in Egypt to six months in prison and hard labour under Article 80 and 178 of the penal code, which prohibit “acts that intend to harm national interests” and “possessing and giving pictures and recorded material that undermine the image of the country by presenting material contrary to the reality or presenting inappropriate scenes”.
(more…)
5 Oct 2007 | Comment, News
September is a resonant time in Egyptian politics. It was then, 26 years ago, that an angry Anwar al Sadat – Egypt’s then president – sent over 1,500 journalists, intellectuals and politicians from across the political spectrum to jail without trial, and fired a host of others from their jobs, for what he believed was their plotting to overthrow his regime. Less than a month later – 6 October, 1981- senior military officers assassinated Sadat during a military parade. His deputy, Hosni Mubarak, took office in a peaceful and constitutional process and has remained in power since then.
More than a quarter of a century later, the shadow of 1981 is not as distant as it should be with 11 journalists given custodial sentences for offending the president and his son.
Of the 11, five are chief editors, including the fiery and outspoken Ibrahim Eissa of Al Dostour, Wael el Ibrashi of Sawt Al Umma, Adel Hammouda of Al Fagr and Abdel Halim Qandil, the former editor of Al Karam. All were sentenced on 13 September to one year in prison, fined LE20,000 ($3,636) and granted bail for a further LE10,000 ($1,818) pending appeal. Their crime? ‘Libelling’ senior figures in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), including President Hosni Mubarak, his son Assistant Secretary-General Gamal Mubarak and Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. Less than two weeks later, on 24 September, Anwar al Hawari, editor of the opposition party mouthpiece Al Wafd, and two other journalists were sentenced to two years in jail for misquoting the justice minister.
The five editors were sentenced under Article 188 of the Egyptian Penal Code which stipulates that anyone who ‘publishes false news, statements or rumours likely to disturb public order’ can face a one-year prison sentence and a fine that does not exceed $3,636.
As the press community was absorbing the shockwaves triggered by these sentences, the state security prosecutor announced that Al Dostour’s Ibrahim Eissa will face yet another trial on 1 October on charges of publishing false information concerning Mubarak’s health and – therefore – undermining national security. A few days ahead of that trial, the government news agency MENA reported that Eissa was to face a state security emergency court, whose sentences are final and cannot be appealed. While outrage was the common sentiment amongst the vast majority of journalists who assembled at the Press Syndicate to discuss ways to respond to these developments, pro-government newspapers pursued their scathing attack on the independent press’s ‘insolence’ for daring to criticize the president and his son. On his part, the president was quoted as saying he is ‘all for a free press’ but that journalists should abide by ‘a code of ethics’.
What Mubarak actually meant was he is all for a free press as long as it does not refer to him, his family, and controversial issues such as the presidential succession, among a long list of ‘red lines’.
It is this kind of conditional freedom that governs every aspect of political life in this country. On the surface, Egypt appears to enjoy a level of democracy unmatched in other Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya. We have 24 licensed political parties (including some opposition), independent and opposition newspapers, parliamentary and presidential elections, workers strikes and street demonstrations.
But since Sadat’s assassination in 1981, Egypt has lived under a strict Emergency Law which, over the years, cauterised the security apparatus and expanded its mandate beyond its executive role.
There are currently at least 16,000 political detainees in Egyptian prisons being held without trial, cases of police torture in prisons and police stations are common news, hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members – the largest parliamentary opposition bloc – have been detained and 40 of their leaders – including university professors and businessmen – are now being tried before a military court for charges of money laundering and terrorism. On 4 September, the authorities shut down a human rights organisation for receiving foreign funding without government approval. And on 1 July, an administrative court dismissed the appeals of 12 unlicensed parties seeking legal recognition. Last March, the authorities held a referendum on constitutional amendments that entrenched Mubarak’s ruling party’s grip on power and was tailored to exclude the largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, from legal political participation. The amendments also made legal to hold elections without independent judicial supervision.
It is in such a climate that Egyptian journalists operate. Both the penal code and the press law are rife with articles that jail journalists for expressing their views under vague phrases such as ‘undermining national security’ or ‘spreading false rumours’. So while the number of privately owned and independent newspapers increased significantly over the past three years, allowing for a freer press, custodial sentences for publishing offences rendered such freedom meaningless.
Before the government adopted a ‘reformist’ and ‘democratised’ discourse over the past three years –in response to US pressure at that time – press censorship was the norm and newspapers were shut down. Ibrahim Eissa’s Al Dostour had first published in the late 1990s and was shut down in 1998. The man himself was banned from writing for many years and all his attempts to publish other newspapers in Egypt failed. Similarly, the opposition Labour party’s mouthpiece Al Shaab was shut down in 2000 for its fearless anti-corruption campaigns and the party itself was frozen altogether.
When the authorities allowed Al Dostour’s comeback in 2005, among other private-owned newspapers, they weren’t prepared for what these papers were ready to publish. Thirsty for meaningful democracy and change, resentful of government-condoned (or sponsored) corruption and damaging economic and political policies, much of the private press became a main platform for dissent and a reflection of the public’s discontent. On the other side of the divide stood the state-owned or backed press which rapidly disengaged from the street and addressed the ruling elite instead. Reading these two types of newspapers eventually became an exercise in reading about two different Egypts.
The problem now is that the authorities seem convinced that the private press, especially Al Dostour, has more power than the state media machine in influencing public opinion. Otherwise, why would it drag its editor to court every few months in cases that always relate to the president? And why did the official news agency report plans to try him before an emergency court? The authorities later reversed that decision and referred him to a criminal court on 1 October under tight security measures, which adjourned the case to 24 October. Officially, Eissa’s crime is reporting on nation-wide rumours on the president’s health, or even death, in August. And in many ways what we’re witnessing is a crackdown on the independent press and an attempt to muzzle freedom of expression. This is why 18 independent newspapers have agreed not to publish on 7 October in protest.
But this isn’t solely about curbing freedom of expression. A quick glance at the bigger picture shows an insecure and aged regime battling for survival through a series of procedures that include silencing the press. If Eissa and his colleagues who face prison sentences end up in jail, they shouldn’t be viewed as only victims of a press massacre, but of a police state consolidating its position.
26 Nov 2025 | Israel, News, Sudan, United Arab Emirates
In what critics see as a major blow to freedom of expression, Israel has banned protests against its ally the United Arab Emirates over the latter’s sponsorship of a militia perpetrating atrocities in Sudan.
“This is a very, very grave step that lessens freedom of protest and freedom of speech,” said Oded Feller, director of the legal department at the Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel.
The ban is causing consternation among the 6,000-strong Sudanese community in Israel. Many of them lost relatives or friends at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in their home country.
In a letter from Maya Vinkler, a police legal adviser in Tel Aviv, to Feller dated 20 November and seen by Index on Censorship, Vinkler refers back to a hearing before the High Court of Justice the previous day during which judges deliberated on an ACRI petition on behalf of Sudanese community activist Anwar Suliman. The petition sought to overturn a police decision based on secret evidence that it would be a “severe threat to state security and public well-being” to hold a protest outside the UAE embassy in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya.
“We wanted the Israeli public to know who is responsible for this slaughter and that it is not just the militia,” Suliman said. The UAE has close ties with Israel, establishing diplomatic relations through the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 – and making its first public purchase of Israeli weaponry a year later.
The country is also a major regional player, but after the RSF’s mass killings of civilians in and around the city of El Fasher in Darfur last month its international reputation is declining. Abu Dhabi insists that it does not back the RSF, but the disclaimer is contradicted by “evidence showing the Gulf state has provided munitions, drones and other equipment to the RSF,” according to a 15 November report in the Washington Post.
The deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and a representative of the foreign ministry attended the high court session.
“In the open part of the discussion it was stressed that there is a danger of harm to state security and harm to foreign relations,” Feller said.
Then the courtroom was cleared so that the deputy head of the National Security Council and “possibly other officials” could brief the judges in secrecy.
When Feller was allowed back into the courtroom, the judges advised him to withdraw the petition. Feller says that since he did not want a negative ruling that would set a precedent, he agreed.
After this setback, Suliman and Feller applied to the police to hold a protest in a park, with placards and speeches, focusing on candle lighting and tributes to friends and relatives killed by the RSF. “I have a friend I studied with for four years and he was killed,” said Suliman “Everyone in the community has someone who was killed there whether it’s a family member or a friend.”
He told Index the Sudanese community just wants to protest the UAE role in Sudan, just as communities in Western cities including London have done recently.
Many in the Sudanese community in Israel have been in Israel for more than 10 years and fled after earlier massacres. According to Sigal Rozen, public policy coordinator of the Tel Aviv based Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, refugees from the Darfur genocide who had fled to Egypt in 2003 began crossing into Israel because of safety fears after a mass shooting incident by Egyptian security forces outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in December 2005. After people saw it was possible to survive in Israel and that they were wanted by the labour market, relatives and friends joined them, she says. This continued until 2012, when Israel erected a fence on the border. According to government figures, 300 people succeeded in crossing into Israel despite the fence during the following three years. The Tel Aviv area has the largest number of Sudanese in Israel. They work mostly in cleaning streets, gardening, and in restaurants and hotels. They do not have work permits, but as part of a 2011 court case, authorities promised they would not enforce the law against them
In previous years, the Sudanese community has been allowed to protest outside the US, UK, EU, Egyptian and Rwandan embassies in Israel. Suliman stresses they were all peaceful demonstrations.
Zakaria Bongo, an English teacher and construction worker from Darfur who has been in Israel for 14 years, is worried that his missing friend Saif Omer may have been killed by the RSF while trying to escape the militia’s capture of El-Fasher. “When the genocide happened last time, people said never again but right now never again is happening in front of the whole world,” he said. “All the world is silent about the crimes so we have to get our voices out.”
But Israel apparently does not want that to happen. The police not only rejected holding the park protest, on 20 November, they informed Feller that they will not grant permits for any protests about the renewed genocide anywhere in Israel. Vinkler claimed in a letter to Feller that during the hearing the judges “accepted the state’s position not to permit protests in the matter of the genocide in Sudan at this time throughout the country.”
Feller says this is a misrepresentation of what happened in the court and amounts to a power grab by the police. He says its decision makers could now, instead of weighing permit applications on their merits “act as the long arm of the national security council and the foreign ministry.”
Vinkler specified in her letter that it did not matter where a demonstration would be held or its “character” it would still be denied a permit. Referring to the closed-door part of the court hearing, Vinkler wrote that the ban against the protest outside the UAE embassy was based on information showing the demonstration “was liable to harm the foreign relations of the state of Israel and state security.”
Alon Liel, former director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, is sharply critical of the police ban. “When you adopt standards of dictatorships and assist dictatorships in committing crimes it shows you might be on the way to losing your democracy,” he said.
The UAE and Israeli foreign ministries did not respond to queries for this article.
