Africa, Headlines, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, Press Freedom

EGYPT: Press Freer, but Still Fettered

CAIRO, Feb 14 2010 (IPS) - Not long ago an editorial like the one that appeared in the independent Al- Dustour newspaper this week might never have made it into print.

In his weekly column, entitled ‘Fraud for the benefit of Egypt’, chief editor Ibrahim Eissa accuses Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of systematically and meticulously rigging elections and referendums to perpetuate his rule. While many Egyptians may suspect this, just a decade ago a journalist would likely have been imprisoned for daring to put it in writing. And Eissa still might.

But Egypt’s “free press” has been pushing back the red lines that once kept a tight lid on dissenting views. After decades of state media control, privately owned broadsheets are expressing opinions and exposing issues their government would rather suppress or spin.

“In the 1990s, an entire village could have been wiped out and you would never have heard anything about it because the only media outlets were state-run,” says journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy. “Today it would be on the front page of half a dozen newspapers.”

Privately owned newspapers are pressing the government on critical issues and exposing malfeasance and corruption. Previously taboo topics such as police torture, democratic reform and presidential succession are now discussed openly and candidly.

Mahmoud Alam Eddin, head of the Journalism Department at Cairo University, sees it as the natural progression of three decades of political and economic transformation. The abolishment of censorship in 1974 and switch to a multi-party system in 1977 opened the field to non-governmental newspapers and magazines.

Over the next 25 years the Egyptian newsstands comprised state newspapers, opposition mouthpieces and an increasing number of private newspapers licensed abroad with circulation in Egypt. Many of the latter were, in Alam Eddin’s estimation, “extremely sensationalist and yellow” tabloids.

A major transformation began in the early 2000s, prompted, some say, by U.S. pressure to further liberalise the press. Since 2004 over a dozen independent newspapers have been granted local licenses including Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Shorouk and Al-Dustour.

The new broadsheets have increased the diversity of Egypt’s media landscape, but the state’s dominance in print is far from being challenged. Government- run Al-Ahram newspaper, for instance, circulates up to one million copies a day. By contrast, the entire independent press combined puts out less than 200,000 copies a day.

And while red lines have been pushed back, rights groups say President Mubarak has reneged on a promise made in 2004 to abolish custodial sentences for journalists who transgress the country’s libel laws. Newspaper editors and journalists have been imprisoned on loosely defined defamation and conduct charges such as “insulting a head of state” or “endangering national interests.”

Gamal Eid, Executive Director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), estimates that around 300 libel cases are filed against journalists a year. Some, like the 2007 sentencing of four editors to one-year jail terms (later overturned) for “publishing false information” critical of the President and his senior aides, make headlines. Most do not.

“These prosecutions are to terrorise journalists so no one would dare to criticise officials or expose corruption,” Eid says.

Yet journalists have been emboldened by the palpable change in the mood on the street. Restive Egyptians are flaunting decades-old restrictions on labour strikes and public demonstrations, and speaking out against the regime.

“Now you have hundreds of people in downtown Cairo burning Mubarak’s posters,” says El-Hamalawy. “This never happened in the 1990s, and is (a sign) that the ceiling has lifted on the general atmosphere of the country.”

But changes do not take place in a vacuum, he says. Communications technologies such as satellite television, mobile phones and the Internet have allowed journalists working in parallel with bloggers and activists to dig deeper and circulate news faster and further. The government has faced a dilemma: ease restrictions on freedom of speech, or face the consequences of trying to muzzle a dizzying array of backdoor channels.

“Two things started opening outlets for us to disseminate news that the government doesn’t want anyone to know about,” El-Hamalawy told IPS. “One was the launching of Al-Jazeera and the other was the rise of the Internet, starting from about 2000.”

Al-Jazeera, a Qatar-based pan-Arab satellite news channel launched in 1996, rose to prominence after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and now claims over 50 million viewers. Western and Arab governments have accused the network of sensationalism, but media analysts say it was the first television station to provide independent and often critical analysis of Arab regimes.

“With Al-Jazeera, we started seeing news that was not necessarily handed to us by the state media,” says El-Hamalawy. “Love it or hate it, the channel played a revolutionary role in the Arab world. For the first time we started seeing dissidents on TV. Before that, if a dissident or (political activist) showed up on TV, you knew he was a phony.”

Television remains the most important source of news in Egypt given the country’s high illiteracy rate, estimated at 26 percent. But Internet penetration is growing. More than 15 million Egyptians, or 18 percent of the population, are regular users. And in logging on, they are exposed to uncensored news and views.

“Egyptians are more informed these days about events both inside and outside the country,” says newsstand clerk Ahmed Sharkawy. “My father still reads (state-run daily) Al-Gomhurriya, but the younger generation in particular wants a newspaper that exposes the government’s lies.”

Alam Eddin says a wave of privately owned newspapers is providing “more credible” journalism and becoming increasingly “investigative,” but the oft- applied terms “free press” and “independent media” are somewhat misleading.

“There is no 100 percent free or independent media,” he warns. “Even if you have freedom from government, you will not have freedom from the publisher, advertisers, international pressure, and (the journalist’s) own concepts and ideologies.”