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EOHR condemns the attack incident on the reporters of El Masry El Youm and El Dostour newspaper in El Dakahlia governorate
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4/2/2008
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights expresses its deepest condemnation concerning the attack incident on the reporters of El Masry El Youm and El Dostour newspaper in El Dakahlia governorate as it represents a violation against the freedom of opinion and expression which was guaranteed by the Constitution and international covenants on human rights . It calls Attorney Prosecutor for investigating the fact of the attack .
On 28/1/2008 EOHR received a complaint from “Ghada Abdul Hafez” , Journalist at El Masry El Youm newspaper , informed as follows :
“ I went to El Mansoura police station after receiving a call from families of one of suspects who was shot by a corporal in El Mansoura police station , but I was surprised by one of police station officers called “Mahmoud Obeid “ who insulted me shamelessly and took my personal possessions and my mobile phone . I was pushed by another officer called “Saad “ to a confinement room where I remained 4 hours . The officer wrote down a report No.2053-2008 Administrative –El Mansoura , then I was submitted to El Mansoura prosecution as I was accused of bursting into the officer room and taking photos without a permission from the competent sides . After I was released I submitted a complaint to the Attorney general for the prosecutions of south El Mansoura accusing police station officers of insulting , libel and faking unreal issues .
On 29/1/2008 EOHR received another complaint from “Saleh Osman” ,reporter of El Dostour newspaper informed the following :
”When I went to the premises of The Register and Documents Department subsidiary to the Department of Civil Status to make a report of citizens’ crowd before administration , I was surprised by one of police station corporal called “Ramadan “ holds me in a despised way and takes off my clothes and attack me savagery with 4 soldiers ,which led to be injured with several bruises . then I was led to another room where I was beaten by an officer called “Khaled El Sayed” on my face and different parts of my body .
I was released after 2 hours of confinement . I submitted a complaint to the Attorney General accusing the officer and mentioned corporal of attacking me during my journalistic formal work .
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first incident of this kind of issues , but it was preceded by many similar cases, especially the assault permitted on "Abdel Halim Kandil" Former executive editor-in-chief of Al-Arabi newspaper , and "Ahmed Mansour", Journalist at El Jazeera channel besides, issues of molestation against many journalists.
In this regard; EOHR expresses its deepest worries concerning the growing phenomenon of violation against journalists’ rights and, as well as the continuing trials of journalists in many opinion cases ,the matter which affects the freedom of opinion and expression negatively and undermines the role of journalism in Egypt . So EOHR repeats its demands for respecting the independence of journalism and the rights of journalists to practice their rights without restrictions in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the provisions of international covenants on human rights ratified by Egypt and became by Article 151 part and parcel of the constitution. These demands are as follows :-
- The need for reviewing laws and legislations that restrict journalistic work . Egyptian legislations have to cope with the international standards .
- The need to provide protection for journalists against repression or murder, detention or arbitrary exposure .
- The need for revising Articles 86 and 86 repeated , which added to the Penal Code by Law No. 97 -1992 as a pretext of combating terrorism. This revision aimed at excluding opinion cases from the wide definition of terrorism .
- Releasing the freedom of issuing newspapers without license for public ,legal and natural persons .
- Guarantee the right to seek knowledge and truth as a fundamental and inalienable right of human, and ensuring the right to receive and handle information , and the need to liberate the media from all
government control to ensure a variety of sources of information and ensuring the flow freely and without restrictions.
- Emphasizing that the freedom of opinion and expression? in general and press freedom in particular, is closely linked to political and democratic reform in general, so there is a need to reconsider the law of political parties and releasing the freedom multi- parties away from restrictions and terminating the exceptional laws and state of emergency .
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