On 12 September 1996, officials from the Ministry of Information’s Foreign Press and Publications Bureau informed the English-language weekly “Middle East Times” that it would not be permitted to publish a featured interview with Saudi dissident Mohammed Maasari in its 15-21 September 1996 issue. The newspaper was subsequently forced to replace the interview with another […]
On 12 September 1996, officials from the Ministry of
Information’s Foreign Press and Publications Bureau informed the
English-language weekly “Middle East Times” that it would not be
permitted to publish a featured interview with Saudi dissident
Mohammed Maasari in its 15-21 September 1996 issue. The newspaper
was subsequently forced to replace the interview with another
article.
**For background to previous harassment, see IFEX alert
dated 16 February 1995**
According to the newspaper, this latest case of censorship
against it marks at least the eighth time in 1996 that one of its
articles has been banned by the Ministry of Information. It is
also the second time this year that an article deemed critical of
Saudi Arabia has been forbidden.
Background Information
In addition to the banning of entire articles, the “Middle East
Times” repeatedly has been forced to edit or delete text
according to the dictates of ministry officials. Moreover, CPJ
has documented numerous examples of government interference in
the paper’s operations since 1993, ranging from the censoring of
individual articles to the outright confiscation of issues.
Additionally, a 16 February 1995 alert originated by Human Rights
Watch reported that the Foreign Press and Publications Bureau had
banned the publication in the “Middle East Times” of an article
about the detention of Wafa al-Bakri, the wife of Abdel Harith
Madani, a lawyer who had died in custody in April 1994 under
suspicious circumstances one day after his arrest by security
forces in Cairo. Before banning the article, the Bureau asked the
newspaper’s publisher why the Madani case was being raised (which
the Bureau termed “an old story”) and why the piece had appeared
on the front page. The publisher stated later that he understood
from the Bureau that if the story were not removed, the issue of
the “Middle East Times” would be banned from distribution and
sale in Egypt (see IFEX alert).
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
“seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any
media and regardless of frontiers,” as guaranteed by the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Ministry of Information to cease all censorship of the “Middle
East Times”
Appeals To
His Excellency Mohammad Hosni Mubarak
President of the Arab Republic of Egypt
Oruba Palace
Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +202 260 5417
Farouk Seif al-Naser
Minister of Justice
Lazoghly Square
Mounira, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +202 355 5700
Amir Moussa
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +202 574 9149
Please copy appeals to the originator if possible.
