No jail for 4 Egyptian editors: Officials
Written by Egypt News Sunday, 01 February 2009
Egyptian judiciary sources announced that an
Egyptian appeals court Saturday overturned prison sentences given to four editors in 2007 for defaming senior members of
Egyptian ruling party, including the president and his son
Egypt’s officials reported that the court in
Cairo ruled that each newspaper editor must pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds, or almost $3,600.
A lower court had sentenced the editors to a year in prison for publishing several articles that it thought damaged the reputations of the president and members of the governing
National Democratic Party (NDP).
That decision was one of several in recent years that have come close to putting prominent journalists behind bars on publishing offenses.
The 2007 convictions also signaled an escalation of what political analysts describe as a campaign by the
National Democratic Party against independent newspapers that have reported that
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him. Both father and son deny that.
The editors in this case —
Ibrahim Issa,
Adel Hammouda,
Wael el-Ebrashi and
Abdel-Halim Qandil — had remained free on bail pending their appeals.
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