Entering the Media Production City in 6 October city was not easy for Youssef Shaaban, who works as a producer for a private satellite TV channel, as all the gates of the city had been secured by troops deployed last week to prevent attacks from President Mohamed Morsi's supporters against the private media channels. Over the last week, Egypt's media, whether owned by the state or the private sector, has been in the crossfire of measures taken by Prime Minister Hisham Kandil's government and the actions of the Islamist groups. Several satellite channels have been threatened with closure, and one journalist has been killed and seven others have been injured, including one raped, while covering the demonstrations against President Morsi that started on 28 June. On 30 June, the Ministry of Investment sent warning letters to six private satellite channels, including CBC, Dream and ONTV, to warn them of possible immediate closure without waiting for a court ruling in cases of violation of media rules. The ministry said it was entitled by a previous administrative court ruling to shut down the channels if they violated regulations committing them to dialogue, objectivity and avoiding incitements to violence. The six channels responded to the letter by issuing a joint statement asserting that such warnings were a “setback” to freedoms gained after the fall of the former regime led by president Hosni Mubarak. The statement said that the channels would “not withdraw from defending the rights of the people to learn”, and it added that articles 45 and 48 of the constitution did not permit the closure of private channels unless there was a court-issued order against them. The Ministry of Investment, which licenses private broadcasters, acted on 27 June to shut down the harshly critical private channel Al-Faraeen. Meanwhile, prosecutor-general Talaat Abdallah, appointed by Morsi under controversial circumstances last year and forced out of office by court order on Tuesday, issued an arrest warrant for Tawfik Okasha, the owner of the channel. Okasha, who has vociferously criticised the administration, is under investigation for allegedly insulting Morsi and calling for a military coup. Earlier on 27 June, the ministry dismissed representatives of the CBC, Dream and Al-Nahar television channels from the board of the Media Free Zone, a state-run body that provides tax incentives, production facilities, and satellite access to media companies. The stations said that the move threatened their future participation in the zone, which was essential to their viability. All three channels have carried critical coverage of the Morsi administration. In preparation for the potential shut downs, journalists working at the channels told Al-Ahram Weekly that they were ready to broadcast online if the government cut off transmission. The government's crackdown on the private satellite channels came two days after the military decided to deploy troops to protect Media Protection City, following threats from some Islamist leaders, including Assem Abdel-Maged from Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya, who asked supporters to protect the “country from the anti-Muslim media”. “The army wants to send a message to the government and the radical Islamists that they are not going to intimidate the media, and Egypt is not Afghanistan,” said Amr Adib in the TV show Al-Qahera Al-Youm on Wednesday. In his speech on 26 June, Morsi accused the private media of “tarnishing the image” of the presidency, inciting violence, and receiving funds from loyalists of the former Mubarak regime. Morsi also warned the opposition and the media that as the military's commander-in-chief he would refer anyone who insulted him for military trial. In another recent speech Morsi had previously announced that he was banning the trial of civilians in front of military courts. “One year is enough,” Morsi said in his speech, referring to the criticisms of his administration. He specifically accused CBC TV owner Mohamed Al-Amin and Dream TV owner Ahmed Bahgat of promoting coverage critical of the government as a way of covering up their own financial and legal problems. Al-Amin later said that the prosecutor-general Abdallah had imposed travel restrictions that barred him from leaving the country, news reports said. Fewer than 24 hours later, Al-Amin was accused of tax evasion and banned from leaving the country. The state news agency MENA said prosecutors had blocked Al-Amin's movements while they probed suspected tax arrears of about $60 million. Al-Amin's lawyer, Mohamed Hammouda, called the legal moves an attempt to “get him and to get the CBC channel along with the Al-Watan newspaper and to force them to acquiesce to the president's will”. Hammouda said he would seek to lift the travel ban and would also sue Morsi for defamation. “This is dictatorship of a kind that Egypt has never seen before,” Hammouda said. The government moves have prompted concerns from international rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “The government warning to satellite channels is yet another attempt in an ongoing campaign by the administration to intimidate the independent and private media into self-censorship,” CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney said. “According to democracy, the president is a public figure and as such is subject to a higher threshold of criticism and satire than any ordinary citizen. Morsi cannot use outdated insult laws to shield his administration from critical reporting and commentary. His government must end threats of referring journalists to prosecution and imposing economic sanctions against news outlets immediately.” State-owned TV was banned from Friday to Sunday from covering the opposition protests live, and it was only allowed to cover the sit-in by pro-Morsi supporters in the vicinity of Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Nasr City in eastern Cairo. However, journalists decided to disobey the instructions of Minister of Information Salah Abdel-Maksoud, a Muslim Brotherhood member, by covering the protests anyway. The move was started by Gamal Al-Shaer, a talk-show host for Egyptian TV 2, who resigned on air in protest at what he called the Muslim Brotherhood's attempts to control his programme. On Sunday, journalists working in the state television newsroom said they would cover all the protests across Egypt and that they refused any interference by the Muslim Brotherhood in editorial policy. Abdel-Maksoud responded by cancelling a TV show called “People of Egypt”, on Nile News after it had hosted opposition leaders including Egyptian Social Democratic Party leader Farid Zahran, Islamic thinker Hassan Kamal and Tamarod campaigner Maha Abu Bakr. In addition to prosecuting journalists and threatening to shut down private satellite channels, the media reported that journalists covering the protests had been subjected to attacks by Islamist supporters. It was reported that at least one journalist had been killed since the beginning of the protests. Salaheddin Hassan, a 37-year-old journalist at the independent news website Shaab Masr (Egyptian People), was killed by a homemade bomb thrown by an unknown person while covering a demonstration against Morsi in the city of Port Said, the website reported. The bomb was hurled at protesters in Shuhadaa Square. When Hassan picked it up to throw it away, it exploded, killing him and injuring 16 others. Ayda Sobh, Hassan's mother, blamed Morsi's supporters for throwing the bomb, according to reports. On the same day, unidentified assailants threw Molotov cocktails and beat up a group of journalists, including correspondents for private satellite stations, who were meeting at cafés to prepare coverage of the demonstrations in the Suez governorate. The assailants chanted anti-media slogans as they attacked the journalists, and equipment including cameras and laptops was destroyed. Three journalists, Mohamed Kamal of Al-Youm Al-Sabei newspaper, Ragaai Al-Attar of the website Suez News, and Karim Anwar of the Al-Badil newspaper, were beaten up and had to be hospitalised. On Sunday, reporters Ahmed Ragab and Ahmed Al-Naggar from the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm were hit by birdshot as they covered attempts by protesters to burn the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo, the paper reported. Brotherhood members inside the building in Muqattam shot live ammunition and rubber bullets and threw Molotov cocktails out of the windows at anti-Morsi protesters, killing 16, according to news reports. More than 700 people were injured, the reports said. Also on Sunday, Al-Arabiya news reported that Morsi supporters gathered in Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Nasr City had forced its crew to leave the area. On Monday, a group of unidentified assailants beat up Omar Zoheiri, a photographer with Al-Watan, in Mohamed Mahmoud Street near Tahrir Square. All of his equipment was stolen, the reports said, and he suffered multiple injuries and had to be hospitalised for treatment. The Dutch embassy in Cairo said in a statement that a 22-year-old Dutch woman had been repatriated after being attacked on Friday evening in Tahrir Square. The woman was a television reporter who had been attacked by unidentified men as she tried to cover the beginnings of the protests. A state hospital issued a statement on Sunday saying that the woman had been hospitalised for two days and had had to undergo surgery.
