(RSF/IFEX) – American journalist Charles Levison, who works for the weekly news magazine “Cairo Times”, was recently expelled from Egypt when he returned from a vacation in the United States. RSF has called on the Egyptian authorities to reverse the decision and allow the journalist to return to Cairo, where he had worked for more […]
(RSF/IFEX) – American journalist Charles Levison, who works for the weekly news magazine “Cairo Times”, was recently expelled from Egypt when he returned from a vacation in the United States. RSF has called on the Egyptian authorities to reverse the decision and allow the journalist to return to Cairo, where he had worked for more than a year.
Levison was given no explanation for his 29 January 2004 expulsion, but the magazine’s publisher, Hisham Kassem, said he was told by the head of the State Intelligence Services that Levison was considered to “pose a threat to state security.” “His explanation for the expulsion of Charles Levison is unacceptable,” Kassem told RSF.
In December 2003, Levison was held for four hours by security forces at Cairo’s airport upon his return from Istanbul, where he covered the bombing of the British Consulate and the British bank HSBC for the “San Francisco Chronicle”.
While in Turkey, Levison wrote two articles for American dailies based on an Amnesty International report that exposed the use of torture in Egyptian prisons and reported on the deaths in custody of militants from the Muslim Brotherhood movement. The articles appear to have been behind the security forces’ hostility towards Levison, leading to his expulsion.
“Cairo Times” is an English-language news magazine that was founded in 1997 and is published under a foreign permit. It is virtually impossible for the magazine to obtain a national permit.
