Journalists are going to jail, reform is in the balance and the press is prophesising doom. Fatemah Farag sees whether things can get worse "Is this a dream or is it real? Is it reality or madness?" screamed Magdi Mehana in his back page column in Al-Masri Al-Yom on 19 April, the day after the Cairo Criminal Court found three journalists guilty of slandering Minister of Housing Ibrahim Soliman and sentenced them to jail. What really galls Mehana is that the ruling comes at a time when the sixth session of the national dialogue between political parties took place and parliament is discussing the amendment of the constitution to allow for more than one presidential candidate. But then this has been a week in which judges took action against a draft law that would limit their freedom, and a week when the Human Rights Council finally released its report documenting the many violations against human rights in the country. "We are changing ourselves towards what is worse; from the attack against the independence of the judiciary to the cheapening of a citizen's pride and now the jailing of journalists..." As far as Mehana is concerned, at this rate it can only get worse. For the past four months Al-Masri Al-Yom has been at the head of a campaign denouncing penal code articles which allow for the incarceration of journalists [all three journalists wrote for the paper]. Only last week, on 13 April Saad Hagras, managing editor of Al-Alam Al-Yom wrote in Al- Masri, "It seems that journalism which was once dubbed the profession of searching for problems, should now be dubbed the profession of searching for a jail cell." Hagras reminds us that President Hosni Mubarak had promised 14 months ago to "give immediate orders so that all legislative measures be taken to rescind" articles in the penal code that provide for imprisonment in cases of libel. The fact that it is taking so long to deal with this relatively basic aspect of reform, according to Hagras, "opens the door to great doubts regarding the official rhetoric on political reform... How many years, or decades will it require to implement an agenda of political and constitutional reform that includes thousands of articles?" This state of affairs is particularly upsetting to Hagras who points out, "It has been proven that in all the cases when Egyptian journalists were incarcerated they were right and the officials that had them imprisoned were the ones who deserved to be sent to court and punished. It has also been proven that the main beneficiaries from such laws are the mafia that thrives on corruption." In the same issue Helmi El-Nimnim, assistant editor-in-chief of Al-Mussawar magazine, spells it out: "The incarceration of journalists is a step that is not devoid of stupidity. Members of society are taken over by fear, panic and there is widespread loss of legitimacy regarding any official statements made about the freedom of expression and political multiplicity. This increases the extent of apathy and people shy away from participation and the silent majority finds a good excuse for its complacency and silence." This, at a time when fears have been consistently vented regarding the role of foreign intervention in the process of political reform at home, and the possibility of "chaos scenarios." This week it was Abbas El-Tarabili's turn to warn against US plans. In Al-Wafd on 14 April, El-Tarabili reminds readers of the importance of events happening throughout the Arab world. From Iraq to Syria to Palestine "the greater aim of all that is taking place in our region is to protect Israel and give it the upper hand to do anything it wants after having destroyed Iraq, disabled Syria and neutralised Egypt." The importance of Israel being the dominant power in the region is so that it can "implement any requests made by Washington." And if we do not move against the plan we can only look forward "to a very black tomorrow" warns El-Tarabili. But at least some of the doomsday scenarios have their roots in local soil. This week, for example, some writers chose the situtation of Egypt's Coptic community as their bone of contention. Rifaat El- Said, head of the Tagammu Party and long-standing secularist, argued in Al-Ahali on 13 April that the position of Islamist groups at the Bar Association and other professional syndicates against Coptic nominees "cannot be disassociated from predominant feelings [in society] that are clouded in sectarian strife -- clouds that have been propagated by those who claim to be Islamists and that have been fueled by the media. Nor can this attitude be disassociated from the politics of discrimination that are officially executed regarding positions in the media, the national ruling party and elections for parliament, Shura and local councils." El-Said warned against allowing discriminatory attitudes towards Egypt's Coptic community to grow. "It is a danger to us all, a danger to Egypt and its future." However, reflecting a more widespread attitude towards the community and its church, Mehana in Al-Masri Al-Yom on 14 April commented on Pope Shenouda's talk at the Lions Cairo Club [where the pope said that the nomination of a Copt for the presidential election was a mere 'joke' and that the most he hoped for was that a Copt would be appointed governor]. Mehana said all Egyptian citizens are equal in rights and that he as a Muslim upholds those rights for all. This is sufficient grounds in Mehana's opinion to disregard the possibility of discrimination. Instead he suggests that the reason behind the demonstrations of frustration exhibited of late by the Coptic community are a function of the politics of the church itself. "These demonstrations did not focus on political reform but focused on social problems and marital issues that the church is unwilling to admit or intervene to solve. The pope himself refuses to even discuss the matter. Hence, it is the church and its current leadership that is exporting internal Coptic problems to the street and society. It is what pushed the Copts to demonstrate, almost resulting in igniting the fire of sectarian strife." People's attitudes and the role of the Islamic clergy and media was the focus of Sayed El-Qimni's article in Rose El-Youssef (16-22 April) in his analyses of the Al-Azhar terrorist bombing. "The clergy has been denouncing the incident, describing it as a horrible crime in spite of the fact that this suicidal terrorist boy is the clergy's No 1 victim... and so society as a whole has become susceptible. This suicide bomber, El-Qimni goes on, "was not produced in Taiwan or Singapore -- he is our product and he highlights great flaws in our local human production industry." According to El-Qimni, the boy was only implementing what the clergy preaches via our official media. The only difference between the terrorist and the clergy is that "they do not possess his courage or faith. He blew himself up and proved with his death that he is the more pious." But then do we know who we are anymore? In an article commemorating the Egyptian poet Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi in Al-Ahram on 13 April, poet and writer Ahmed Abdel-Moeti Hegazi recounts his experience as a member of a board responsible for interviewing young professionals auditioning to be TV presenters. "I asked one of them: 'what do you know about Taha Hussein?' and she answered 'it is a street in Zamalek'." Hegazi can only wonder what the answer would have been if he had asked her about the much lesser known Abu Shadi. But the young woman is not alone in her ignorance and Hegazi laments that there are "those who are working hard to strip us of our national memory. But we will only become free masters of our country when we embody our history." Bottom Lines "How can a republican political system be consistent with itself in a state like Egypt where the authority of the president is no less than that of an African king, an emperor in some distant country or a tribal chieftain in the desert?" Nabil Omar, Sawt Al-Ummah "The invisible American government represented by the neo-cons knows well that the 'big prize' is Egypt. But it also realises that it is a difficult prize to obtain and so they adopted the Trojan horse ploy which is based on wreaking havoc from within." Abdel-Moniem Mohamed, Rose El-Youssef "The president is now responsible for Iraq in its entirety, rather than one region alone... It makes no difference whether he is a Kurd, Arab, Turcoman, Muslim, Christian or Yezidi. What is important is that he is Iraqi." Basim Al-Sheikh, Al-Dustour By
