Amira Howeidy unravels events surrounding the dismissal of , Al-Dostour 's founding editor and firebrand columnist When Wafd Party leader, billionaire El-Sayed El-Badawi, and business tycoon Reda Edward, bought the independent daily Al-Dostour (the constitution) two months ago, the news raised many surprised -- even sceptical -- eyebrows. El-Badawi's move, which came three months after he was elected head of the opposition Wafd party, seemed indicative of the businessman's growing political appetite and ambitions. Few expected the paper's takeover would so quickly lead to the departure of its founding editor. , 46, was fired on Monday 5 October following a stormy meeting with Edward. According to Abdel-Meneim Mahmoud, one of Al-Dostour 's editors, the paper was preparing to publish a piece by ex-director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei, to mark the 37th anniversary of 6 October, when the Egyptian army regained control of Sinai. In his article, El-Baradei wrote that 37 years after the 1973 "victory" Egypt "had not progressed politically or economically", adding that social and cultural problems had, if anything, become more exacerbated in the interim. Edward was unhappy with the 400-word piece and instructed Eissa to remove it from Al-Dostour 's pages. Eissa objected. He later met with Edward on Monday evening when, according to Mahmoud, Eissa was told he could keep his salary, a daily column and his car but must allow the job of editor-in-chief to be filled by someone else. Strangely, the purported offer also included keeping Eissa's name on the paper's masthead. Eissa reportedly refused and notified his staff. They turned up at the paper's headquarters and began debating with Edward till past midnight. "We told Edward that we would not work without Eissa and that his aim since taking over had been to get rid of Eissa," Mahmoud told Al-Ahram Weekly. Since the takeover, says Mahmoud, the new management has been sensitive about what Al-Dostour can and cannot publish. Sensitivities were exacerbated earlier this week when the paper published a lengthy piece on Muslim-Coptic tensions by Islamist-oriented intellectual and lawyer Mohamed Selim El-Awwa that was critical of the Orthodox Church. The article had originally been written for Al-Masry Al-Yom. Because of its length the paper decided to serialise the article but discontinued after publishing the first instalment. While the paper issued a statement saying the decision to discontinue the instalments was taken to "protect national unity" many saw the hand of Al-Masry Al-Yom 's co-owner, Coptic business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, as behind the move. Al-Dostour, which was critical of El-Awwa's take on the church, decided to publish the second part of his article in order to promote freedom of expression. "The Church and Al-Watan " (country, state and home) appeared on Sunday 3 October. According to Mahmoud this provoked Edward who feared that the church could sue Al-Dostour as a result. After the midnight spat between Al-Dostour 's staff and Edward reached a dead end the latter had the paper's computers and equipment removed from its offices and transported to the offices of the Wafd Party's mouthpiece. Attempts by the Weekly to contact El-Badawi and Edward were unsuccessful. By the time the Weekly went to press El-Badawi had held a press conference at which he announced his resignation as the chairman of Al-Dostour 's board. In an apparent attempt at damage limitation, sources close to El-Badawi told the Weekly that he did not, and would not, fire Eissa. Edward, who has an equal share in Al-Dostour, is expected to succeed El-Badawi, becoming the only Copt to head the board of a current Egyptian newspaper. Meanwhile, at Al-Dostour 's downtown headquarters, the paper's journalists continued the sit-in they began on Monday night. Video clips and photos of developments were being made available online, including the removal of Al-Dostour 's computers and other equipment. The paper's staff issued a statement on Tuesday noon claiming that the "removal" of Eissa, an outspoken critic of President Hosni Mubarak, serves the "succession" of Gamal Mubarak. The statement argued that what had happened cannot be isolated from current and future political developments. Al-Dostour 's reporters now say they have nothing to do with the print edition but will continue to feed the paper's online edition with news. The domain name of Al-Dostour 's website is owned by Eissa, which gives him and the disgruntled staff leverage to publish electronically. It is still unclear how they will sustain an online publication which carries the same name and logo of the print edition, or who will fund the enterprise. Eissa's departure comes two weeks after his show on OTV -- a TV satellite channel owned by Sawiris -- was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. And at the end of September Al-Qahera Al-Yom (Cairo Today), a popular talk show hosted by Amr Adib and broadcast live on the privately owned Orbit satellite channel, was also stopped. And in the print media there are unconfirmed reports that best selling novelist Alaa El-Aswani, a member of El-Baradei's National Assembly for Change, will stop publishing his weekly column in the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper after the paper's management asked him to tone down his criticisms of the regime. Observers have been quick to associate such developments with the approach of the November 2010 parliamentary elections and the 2011 presidential elections. "The noose is tightening," says Ayman El-Sayyad, a media expert and editor of the monthly Weghat Nazar (points of view) review of books, "and it will get tighter." There is no clear demarcation between the management and ownership of a publication and its editorial decisions, says El-Sayyad, "and the predicament applies to every press institution in Egypt". Licensed in Cyprus, Al-Dostour was launched, with Eissa as editor, in 1995. It was banned in 1998 for publishing a statement by the Gamaa Islamiya (Islamic group). Eissa was also banned from writing for almost 10 years. He returned in 2004 to a more politically relaxed environment and republished Al-Dostour as a weekly newspaper in the same year. It went daily in 2007.
