Seized newspaper reads dark times for Egypt's press
The repeated confiscation of Al-Ahaly newspaper has raised complaints about press freedom in Egypt, where state oversight of the media is a long and opaque tradition.
CAIRO — A wave of anger swept journalists and rights groups in Egypt after copies of Al-Ahaly newspaper were confiscated for the third week in a row.
The Egyptian National Progressive Unionist Party, which owns the newspaper, condemned the incident and questioned its recurrence. The party called the move an egregious act of meddling intended to control the editorial content of the newspaper.
According to the statement, a censorship officer from the Egyptian National Security Agency who is stationed at the paper’s publishing house to monitor its work warned the paper that the issue would be blocked if the content were not changed. The May 29 issue included the names of convicts who were released in a presidential pardon. The newspaper's editorial board refused to omit the content and as a result, the issue was not published.
In its statement, the party asked who was behind the confiscation of the newspaper and the meddling in the journalistic work of a respected political party’s newspaper, questioning the motivations and legal basis of such censorship. It protested that the move violated the law guaranteeing freedom of expression.
