Section (Media Freedom in the Arab World)

Journalists and Pickpockets: Egypt Reconsiders its Libel Law

Journalist Gamal Fahmi, comparing his six-month jail sentence for libel to a thief's three-month term, once wryly remarked that in Egypt, "el-nashL [pick pocketing] is much safer than el-nashr {publishing}.

As Egypt reconsiders its draconian libel laws, this may finally be changing—though neither as quickly nor as dramatically as many reformers would like. In late February, 2004, President Hosni Mubarak promised to eliminate prison sentences altogether for journalists. As this fall's presidential and parliamentary elections draw near, the harsh laws remain on the books and journalists face the continued possibility of being jailed for their words.

Parliament declared itself too busy with election reforms to enact these laws before its summer recess, when they are simultaneously most needed and least palatable to lawmakers— to protect journalists' rights while they cover parliamentary and presidential elections. It did, however, find time to include a provision to its amendment of the 1956 Political Participation Laws (Law 73) that imposes new penalties for journalists publishing false information intended to affect elections.

Still, the President's eighteen-month-old promise to change libel laws has strengthened the hand of the Press Syndicate in pleading journalists' cases. Last fall, Ahmed Ezzedine of al-Osbou was jailed, but had his sentence suspended. In April, the jailing of three journalists from the independent newspaper Masry al-Yom for libel sparked fierce protests. Three days later, the government agreed to suspend their one-year prison sentences.

Libel is a punishable offense in legal systems across the world, but Egypt is one of a small minority of countries that imprisons journalists for it. The problem is exacerbated by the vagueness of Egypt's 1996 libel laws, which include as libelous writings against "the values of society, its principles, the public ethics and morals of society," categories open to wide interpretation. Also, government officials' personal lives are singled out for special protection. The law provides for criminal penalties up to two years in prison and fines as high as 20,000 Egyptian pounds (double the average Egyptian's per capita income).

This despite the fact that press freedoms are enshrined in that long-forgotten document, Egypt's Constitution. Article 208 states explicitly that "The freedom of the press is guaranteed and press censorship is forbidden." Such guarantees, however, have been vitiated by a quarter-century of Emergency Law.

The proposed legal reforms have traveled a slow and circuitous route over the past eighteen months. In February 2004, President Mubarak informed the Press Syndicate that he would have the libel laws changed. A bill went through the Committee on Suggestions and Complaints, which led to the formation of a joint committee between the Justice Ministry and the Press Syndicate. When differences arose, after eight leisurely months of studying the problem, a separate joint committee was convened to resolve them. The bill, which eventually found its way to the President's desk, was not submitted to parliament in the recently finished legislative term.

Removing the prison sentence from Egypt's libel laws would hardly guarantee a free press—it is just one of the factors that leads Reporters Without Borders to rank Egypt 128th out of 167 countries worldwide in its Worldwide Press Freedom Index. The Egyptian Organization on Human Rights recently released a report called "Egyptian journalists…Fettered pens, continued prosecution and sexual assault" that details assaults on journalists, including sexual assaults, by pro-government thugs, of female journalists during the May 25th referendum when they were supposed to be under the protection of Egyptian police. The government continues to control the major newspapers, the broadcast media, and the licensing of smaller newspapers as well.

Journalists would still face prohibitively steep fines for libel. Yehya Qallash, spokesman for the Journalists' Syndicate, worries that journalists, whose moderate incomes mean they cannot not afford to pay such steep fines, "would definitely face imprisonment. Therefore, the imposition of high financial penalties would bring about no change, since the threat of imprisonment would still be there."

If the government does relax its libel laws, even after the Presidential election, this would represent a small but significant step toward press freedom in Egypt. At least, Egyptian journalists then will no longer envy pickpockets for their relatively light prison terms.