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adamdott Cover Design:
Internal Design: Amal Hamed
Freedom of Media Program “Semiannual News letter”
A periodical newsletter on the state of media and press in Egypt
Publisher:
Association o Freedom of
Thought and Expression
Done by: Wesam Atta
Monitoring and Documentation Unite Director
MethodologyThe report is based on monitoring by researchers of the AFTE media freedom
program, what is published on online networks and news sites, in addition to
the group of “Journalists’ against torture”. Researchers then verify the violations
through direct contact with victims, their families, eyewitnesses or via posts
by victims on their personal facebook pages, in the media or through news
published by media and press institutions to which they are affiliated.
Time scope of report: The report covers violations against journalists between
25 June - 28 December 2016
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Geographical scope of report: Nationwide
Criteria for inclusion of cases of violation of freedom of the press and the media in the report:
a. Confirmed identity of the journalist:
A press syndicate ID, a work permit from a press institution, a press archive in a press institution,
a certificate by the press institution; AND
b. Confirmation of press institution:
a facebook page, a website or a hard copy version of the journal/newspaper in addition to valid
contact information
c. Confirmation that the journalist was doing his job at the time of the violation: work permit or authorization for a press mission, or a testimony by victim or eyewitnesses, or a
certificate by responsible body at the press institution.
Classification of perpetrators of violations
1- Government officials: including all public civil servants while in working hours excepting
employees working at civil or military security bodies.
2- Security bodies: including sectors of the ministry of interior, ministry of defense and other
state troops.
3- Private guards or security: including any private guards whether independent or
appointed by companies. In case the violation by private security is committed by direct order of
a government official the violation will be considered to be by government officials
4- Judicial bodies: including public prosecution or bench judges.
5- Civil bodies: including all citizens outside official government circles.
6- Press or media bodies: including all press and media channels, newspapers, websites,
networks, channels, media companies, with the exception of Maspero.
7- Parliament: including parliamentary decisions or violations committed by its members.
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Classification of victims’ affiliation:
1- Egyptian private channels, based in Egypt
2- Egyptian private publications, whether magazines or newspapers.
3- Egyptian state-owned publications, whether magazines or newspapers.
4- Egyptian parties’ publications, including all press publications owned by any party
5- Websites and news networks: including all websites and networks on the internet that publish
press material, i.e. news or press material not related to special or private events.
6- Multiple: includes a combination of any of the above
7- Unspecified: Affiliation of victim not identified
Terms used in the report
1- Press syndicate, referring to the syndicate or any of its representatives (head or members of
its council)
2- Official news agency: Middle East News Agency (MENA)
3- Non-Egyptian channels, whose headquarters is outside Egypt
4- Foreign agencies and newspapers, which are issued from abroad.
5- Multiple channels: victims belong to more than one channel.
Note: In case of multiple press activities for the same institution, we used the institution that is
most organized and structured such as producing a printed newspaper or a website, in which case
the activities of its journalists are included under “printed”.
6- Arrest: Restriction of freedom of a journalist, escorting him to a police station and
documentation of a report.
7- Illegal detention: Restricting freedom of a journalist, taking him to a detention place and
then his release without documentation of a report
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8- Obstruction and arbitrariness: restricting freedom of journalist in doing his work for some
time without detaining him.
Definition of a violation
It is a violation against a single journalist at a certain time and place.
This is defined by four main variables (place of violation, time of violation, type of violation, the
victim). For example, if three journalists are arrested at a certain incident, where one of them was
beaten, a second verbally abused, this would be counted as five violations: three cases of arrest,
one case of beating and one case of verbal abuse.
Definition of an incident:
This refers to all violations that are inflicted on one or more journalist at a certain time and place,
to be distinguished by two main variables: place and time of violation.
Notes:
In the case of any type of collective violation (prevention of coverage) it would be considered a
single violation since the violation targeted the profession as a unit and not a particular individual.
This is also meant to avoid the problem of identifying the number of journalists afflicted and their
identifies especially that those kind of violations are almost a daily occurrence. Also, otherwise we
would be confronted with a statistical problem in view of the very large number that would result.
Cases of obstruction and arbitrariness against journalists during their coverage of the protests
against the Egyptian Saudi agreement concerning the island of Tiran and Sanafir have been
excluded, since we could not confirm most of them.
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Second half of 2016: Decrease of violations to the lowest levels
since years.
Violations against the press and media community have decreased during the previous 6 months
parallel to a decrease in political activities and events. We recorded 134 case of violation ranging
from arrest of journalists while on the job, prevention from coverage, illegal detention, assault
by beating or casing injury and other violations, which have become one of the obstacles against
journalism in Egypt over the past years.
Violations decreased by a rate of 55.1% compared to the first half of 2016 where we recorded 303
violations.
Violations against press and media community during 2016
During the first half of 2016 303
During the second half of 2016 134
Total 437
Violations also showed a 63% decrease for the same period during 2015 (362 cases)
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Noteworthy during the last 6 months is an accusation by a female journalist in Rosa Alyoussef
newspaper of sexual harassment by the chief editor, filing an official complaint no. 11668/2016
Kasr El Nil misdemeanor. Also, the press syndicate and its representatives continue to be subjected
to violations, since Kasr El Nil court sentenced the head of the syndicate Yehia Kallash, secretary
of the freedom committee, Khaled el Balshy and syndicate secretary Gamal Abdel Rehim to two
years and a 10 thousand pounds bail for each.
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Timeframe of violations
October witnessed the highest number of violations (28) followed by July and November (26
each), September (25 cases), December and August (15 and 14 cases respectively)
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Geographical scope of violations
73.9% of violations against journalists took place in Cairo, followed by Giza (16 cases) and
Alexandria (5 cases).
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Type of violation
Prevention from coverage came at the top of the list of violations against journalists and media
personnel (71 cases) followed by beatings or causing injury (19 cases), arrest and illegal detention
(10 cases each), 7 cases of banning a program or an article or an issue of a newspaper, 6 judicial
procedures, and 5 cases of confiscation of press equipment, their destruction or deletion of their
memory.
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Perpetrator of violations
Security bodies committed the highest number of violations (56 cases), followed by judicial
bodies (26), various civil groups (25), press or media institutions (9 cases), parliament (9 cases),
government officials (7 cases) and private security (2 cases).
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Profession of victim
Collective violations were the most common against journalists during the last 6 months (57
cases), 44 cases against individual journalists, 20 cases against photojournalists, and 4 violations
against newspapers.
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Institutional affiliation of victim
68 violations were committed against journalists working in networks and news websites, followed
by private Egyptian publications (19 cases), and finally state-owned Egyptian publications (8
cases).
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Detained journalists
No. Date of arrest
Name of journalist
Profession and institution
Legal status Sentence Case no.
1 14/8/2013 Mahmoud Abdel Shakour Abu Zeid
Photographer, Demotex press agency
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
15899/2013 administrative Madinet Nasr 1st
2 25/8/2013 Samhi Mostafa Ahmed Abdelalim
Executive director, Rassd news network
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
2210/2014 Agouza criminal case and 317/2014 high state security prosecution
3 25/8/2013 Mohamed Mohamed Mostafa Eladli
Correspondent and presenter, Amgad satellite channel
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
2210/2014 Agouza criminal case and 317/2014 high state security prosecution
4 25/8/2013 Abdallah Ahmed Mohamed Elfakharany
Founding members, Rassd news network
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
2210/2014 Agouza criminal case and 317/2014 high state security prosecution
5 25/1/2014 Ahmed Fuad Mohamed Elsayed
Correspondent, Karmouz website
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
1416 Montaza 1st administrative case
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6 21/3/2015 Abdelrahman Abdelsalam Yaqout
Photographer, Karmouz news website
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
8558/2015 Dekheila criminal cases, 1206/2014 West Alexandria
7 3/7/2013 Mahmoud Mohamed Abdelnabi
Correspondent, Rassd network
Pretrial detention, Criminal court, ongoing
Not sentenced yet
50666/2014 Montaza 1st criminal case, 4214/2014 East Alexandria
8 29/11/2015 Ismail Elsayed Mohamed Omar Taufik
Journalist Detention pending investigations
Case not referred to court yet
569/2015 high state security case
9 24/4/2015 Mohamed Abdelmoneim Imam Mohamed
Journalist, Tahia Masr newspaper
Sentenced 3 years 5197/2015 Dar El Salam criminal cases, 197/2015 interrogation
10 26/9/2016 Hamdi Mokhtar El Zaim
Elnabaa newspaper
Detention pending investigations
Case not referred to court yet
15060/2016 Kasr el Nil misdemeanor
11 26/9/2016 Mohamed Hassan
Elnabaa newspaper
Detention pending investigations
Case not referred to court yet
15060/2016 Kasr el Nil misdemeanor
12 26/9/2016 Osama Elbashbishi
Elnabaa newspaper
Detention pending investigations
Case not referred to court yet
15060/2016 Kasr el Nil misdemeanor
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13 23/12/2016 Mahmoud Hussein Gomaa
Journalist, Aljazeera channel
Detention pending investigations
Case not referred to court yet
For more information on detained journalists please visit https://goo.gl/H43YmY
