Egypt Press Union To Appeal Journalist’s Arrest

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The New York Sun

CAIRO, Egypt — The Egyptian Press Union said it will appeal the sentencing of opposition newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa, who was convicted of publishing rumors about the health of President Mubarak.

“We disapprove of sending journalists to prison and therefore are taking all measures to suspend this order,” the deputy manager of the press union, Ahmed Anany, said by telephone yesterday from Cairo. The group represents more than 5,000 journalists.

Mr. Eissa, editor of the independent daily al-Dostour, was sentenced on Sunday to two months in prison. He was convicted of spreading rumors, inciting fear, and disrupting public peace. The editor, who wasn’t in court to hear the sentencing, has 24 hours to turn himself in to begin the jail term or face arrest.

In August 2007, Mr. Eissa and several other editors wrote stories containing suggestions that Mr. Mubarak, 80, was ill after the president made fewer public appearances than usual. The stories riled the Egyptian government, which accused Mr. Eissa, among the most outspoken of the editors, of prompting a drop in the stock market and scaring off international investors.

Mr. Mubarak has been president since 1981. Speculation about his health began after he was taken ill in 2003 during a live televised speech, when he began to slur his words. He had back surgery in Germany in 2004.

The journalists’ union has written to high-ranking officials, including the attorney general and Minister of Interior Habib Al-Adli, asking them to suspend the sentence until an appeal is heard.

Journalists say they fear the ruling is part of a wider crackdown on writers critical of the government. Several members of the country’s press have been imprisoned.

The minister of state for legal and parliamentary councils, Mufid Shihab, denied that the government was behind the sentencing and said the state won’t interfere in the court ruling.

“We do not meddle with the courts and we will never interfere in a court sentence including, of course, this one,” he said. “We have to respect the separation of powers.”

Mr. Eissa said the ruling was an attempt to silence journalists who oppose the regime.

“The sentence is a warning message to all journalists,” he said after the jail term was announced. “But what in fact it does is destroy the myth that this regime is reforming at all. They cannot deny that they are retreating on all freedoms, including freedom of the press.”


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