(Others) – Twelve Egyptian newspapers and five TV channels announced that they will go on strike for one day to object to both the constitutional declaration and the draft constitution that were recently issued. The newspapers will not print on Tuesday and the TV channels will go off-air on Wednesday. The draft constitution, which was passed on 30 November by the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly and is set to be voted on in a referendum on 15 December, does not include articles against the imprisonment of journalists in cases related to freedom of expression as demanded by journalists. The Journalists Syndicate's executive council had withdrawn its representatives from the Constituent Assembly in mid-November after its recommendations and suggestions were ignored by the assembly. Later, the general assembly of the syndicate had threatened on 25 November to stage a strike against the constitutional declaration that President Mohamed Morsi issued on 22 November. The newspapers that will go on strike on Tuesday include: Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Watan, Al-Tahrir, Al-Wafd, Al-Youm El-Sabee, Al-Dostour, Al-Shorouk, Al-Sabah, Al-Ahaly, Al-Ahrar, Al-Fagr and Osbooe. The TV channels that will go on strike on Wednesday, with blank screens broadcasting in place of content, are: ONTV channels, CBC channels, Modern channels, Al-Hayat Channels and Dream TV channels. Already on Monday, Al-Wafd newspaper, Al-Youm El-Sabee newspaper, Al-Watan newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper and Tahrir newspaper shared the same headline “No to dictatorship” with an illustration showing a prisoner made of newspaper sitting in a dark cell. Online media will not go on strike on Tuesday to be able to cover the newspaper strike and other protests planned by the opposition against both the declaration and the draft at the presidential palace in the evening. "We need the online media to be able to send the message of the strike to the reader," Alaa El-Attar, member of the Journalists Syndicate board said. "However, it will be left to every online news site to define the way it expresses its solidarity with the strike," El Attar added.
