Many decrees related to access information and freedoms of expression and creativity have been decided in Egypt on last days, and some indexes refer to the orientations of Egyptian government towards imposing more of censorship and restrictions on different spaces which used as platforms for expression and creativity.
The most prominent event was dismissing Ibrahim Essa who is the notable journalist and the editor of Al Dostor newspaper on 4 / 10 / 2010 by a decree from the new owners of the newspaper. This decree made a backlash among journalists of Al Dostor who decided to occupy the location of the newspaper, and then they moved their occupation to the syndicate of journalists for doing a pressure on its administration to intervene for helping them to keep their financial and moral rights, forcing the new owners to save the editing policy with out any changing after Essa`s dismissing, and to return Essa as the editor of the newspaper.
On 5 /10 / 2010 the Supreme Council of Judiciary "SCJ " decided prevention all video and audio recordings to judicial trails . Some of Egyptian human rights organizations criticized the decree, and described it as a violation to freedom of media, and a restriction on access information which relate to these trails, also the Arabic Center for Independence of Judiciary and Lawyers" said that this decree abuses of article 169 of Egyptian constitution.
On 12/10/2010 the administration of Egyptian satellite "Nile sat" has been decided closing down 4 TV channels Al Kalijyia , Al Nas , Al Hafez and Al Seha W Algamal allegedly non-compliance to the circumstances of the license of transmission, and without mention the circumstances which they abused them , as well as reactive the prior decree that the TV channels must have a permission from the ministry of mass media before any Live transmission. On 20/10/2010 BBC Arabic stated that Nile sat administration closed down 12 TV channels
On the other hand the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority "NTRA" issued a new decree on 11/10/2010 to impose new restriction on bulk sms service which provided by many telecommunication companies in Egypt. The decree include impose a new fees on the companies and monitoring the messages before sending them to masses.
In respect to religious censorship the Islamic Research Council "IRC " requested for prevent transmission of Iranian TV series "Youssef Al Sediq " which transmitted on Melody Drama channel , because it personifies the character of prophet Youssef . That request based on Advisory opinion issued by "IRC" prohibits personification of holly persons like prophets, their comrades, and their families. Also "IRC" ignored a request from one of American film production companies to gets a permission for production documentary film about Prophet Mohammed's genes. IRC issued an advisory opinion to confiscate a book called "Al Torath Wa Al Tagdid" or "Heritage and Renewal" which written by Dr / Hassan Hanafy" after 30 years since it published , allegedly it contains many ideas against Islam religion.
On 17/10/2010 the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression "AFTE" issued its semiannual report about censorship on creativity which covers the cases of censorship in Egypt from January to June 2010.
The report monitored 7 judgments related to censorship on press, publishing and TV channels and programs, and two lawsuits, the first one which submitted by a lawyer who claims the court to resolve to canceling the license Al Khlijia TV channel transmission, the second lawsuit submitted to the court by Youssef Al Badry- who still submit lawsuits against creators- to claims the court to canceling the decree of culture ministry which decided to grant Hassan Hanafy and Said Al Kemny the State Award in social sciences, accusing them that their books attack Islam religion .
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