Dina Ezzat reports on the fall-out between a prominent daily and the foreign minister The independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yom looks set to intensify its campaign against Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit. After weeks during which the paper has accused Abul-Gheit of mismanaging Egyptian official responses to the Israeli war on Lebanon, the widely-circulated independent daily is now taking the foreign minister to court over accusations Abul-Gheit made about being misquoted by Al-Masri Al-Yom 's parliamentary correspondent Mohamed Abu Zeid. Abu Zeid is charging Abul-Gheit with slander for having accused him of attributing inaccurate quotes to the foreign minister. The foreign minister says Abu Zeid misquoted a statement he made during a parliamentary hearing. After referring to the minutes of the hearing Abul- Gheit asked for a correction to be printed in the paper. "The foreign minister was quoted as saying that if the Arabs wanted to fight with Israel they could not expect Egyptian blood to be the ammunition for such a war. The quote is inaccurate and it is not included in the minutes of the hearing," said a statement issued by Abul-Gheit's press office. Having agreed to print the requested correction Al-Masri Al-Yom 's editor-in-chief, Magdi El-Gallad, and a number of its columnists are now further criticising the foreign minister. In an article last Thursday, El-Gallad accused the foreign minister and his press secretary of seeking to mislead the public. Then on Tuesday the independent daily announced the news of the lawsuit on its front page, quoting Mohamed Abdel-Quddous, the rapporteur of the Freedoms Committee of the Press Syndicate, as declaring the committee's support of Abu-Zeid. Abul-Gheit, Abdel-Quddous was quoted as saying, had targeted Al-Masri Al-Yom 's parliamentary correspondent in an attempt to deflect attention away from his ministry's handling of the Lebanese crisis. In a short interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Abdel-Quddous confirmed the statements attributed to him in Al-Masri Al-Yom. The debate over Abul-Gheit's statement before parliament comes against a backdrop of heated criticism levelled in most independent and all opposition press against the diplomatic management of the Israeli war on Lebanon. It also came at a time when President Hosni Mubarak has gone on record as opposing any attempts to drag Egypt into a war with Israel. "I think that Abul-Gheit has publicly insulted the parliamentary journalist of Al-Masri Al-Yom. Senior officials cannot be allowed to get away with this," Abdel-Quddous said. He rejected the accusations of misquotation levelled by the Foreign Ministry. "The responsibility of the Freedoms Committee is to support the journalist. We are not investigators but we are convinced that there were no misquotations," he said, adding that Abul-Gheit "has blown the matter out of all proportion". "Abul-Gheit had very good relations with Al-Masri Al-Yom. He could have handled the matter in a different way," Abdel-Quddous added. Foreign Ministry sources say Abul-Gheit did try to handle the matter in a non-confrontational way but the paper was not particularly responsive. "The minister tried to call the editor-in-chief of Al-Masri Al-Yom several times when the wrong quotes were printed. It took some time to get through to him and even then the situation was not handled adequately," said one source. Initially, Al-Masri Al-Yom printed what the ministry qualified as an "inadequate correction". Then, following further contacts, it printed a more prominent correction, though with a typing error indicating the minister was affirming rather than denying the quotes. Later, on the front page of Al-Masri Al-Yom, an adequate correction was printed with a photo of Abul-Gheit. "We printed the full text of the correction, even though that we knew that these were accurate quotes but we did so out of respect for the foreign minister and because we did not want to occupy the time of our readers or our paper's column inches with the argument," El-Gallad told the Weekly. "Having printed the correction on the front page we thought the issue should have been closed. We thought that we had accorded the minister the right of reply in a way that is not offered in the national dailies. But then the minister, against whom I have nothing personal, chose to further comment on the matter during a TV interview on Channel Two and during an interview with another newspaper. Then we had to react." Sources in the Foreign Ministry insist that Abul- Gheit did not choose to blow things out of proportion or spoke unduly about a closed matter. "The remarks that the minister made later were in answer to questions. He was asked about the incident and he had to answer," the source said. Abul-Gheit told both Al-Beit Beitak talkshow and Al-Watani Al-Yom, the weekly mouthpiece of the ruling National Democratic Party, that he was misquoted. "When the minister did this it meant that the government was going public with its attack against the newspaper. This is not something that I am willing to overlook. We have the evidence and we can prove the accuracy of our reporting," El-Gallad said. Both Abdel-Quddous and El-Gallad acknowledge that policy statements made by Abul- Gheit indicate official policy that is not made exclusively by the foreign minister and with which he might not at times agree. They both accept that due to the complex nature of foreign-policy making in Egypt, it is unfair to blame Abul-Gheit alone for any foreign policy blunder. But they both insist it is one thing to disagree with foreign policy line of a particular newspaper and an altogether different thing to attack a parliamentary correspondent and attempt to undermine the credibility of a leading independent daily by accusing it of misquoting. "When it comes to the credibility of Al-Masri Al-Yom I have to act," El-Gallad said. The press office of the foreign minister declined to comment on Abul-Gheit's reaction to the lawsuit or the measures that the foreign minister is planning in response. The office also refuses to comment on whether or not the lawsuit is seen as a part of an orchestrated campaign against Abul-Gheit. A Foreign Ministry source insists, though, that Abul-Gheit "had no choice but to confirm that these statements were inaccurate every time the issue is raised". "It would have been wrong if the minister made this statement," says one informed source. "But he did not make it and he has to deny it."
