freedom of the press

In Egypt (site of the Why Democracy? film Egypt: We Are Watching You), where 11 journalists were sentenced to prison terms last month, Ibrahim Issa, editor of Al-Dustour and a high-profile critic of President Hosni Mubarak, is now headed to trial.

Press freedom exists to about the same extent in Egypt as democracy, i.e., both flourish only in the propaganda of the government. Elsewhere, blogger and journalist Hossam al-Hamalawy reports that a cleric is backing a judge's attempt to have the government ban 51 blogs and websites (including al-Hamalawy's). And Nora Younis writes of another blogger, just released from prison, who has revealed the name of the security officer who he says tortured him.

Al-Hamalawy's blog gives a great inside view of Egypt's political turmoil and the struggle against the Mubarak regime. In other posts he details the ongoing government crackdown on student groups, the massive coordinated strikes now taking place and international solidarity movements.

The story is simple. A newspaper, Mid-Day, had published a series of articles critical of a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. Last week a ruling by the Delhi High Court sentenced four journalists associated with those articles to four months of imprisonment because it held that the reports amounted to contempt of the Supreme Court.

The Indian press protested that ruling and when the journalists approached the Supreme Court, it put the sentencing of the High Court on hold. [BBC story here.]