CAIRO: The international community celebrated International Day for the Freedom of the Press on Tuesday, May 3. Egypt's Almasreyeen al-Ahrar party saw the celebration this year being centered on the modern electronic media that played a key role in the January 25 revolution which liberated Egypt from decades of dictatorship and the stifling of freedoms during which the Egyptian press suffered the most notorious types of repression and distortion. “Today while Egypt is in the process of building a new state based on initial freedoms and at the gates of an unprecedented electoral experience and on the base of our belief that a free press and fair elections are the first shield of democracy, we call for the immediate abolishment of Article 22 Act 69 of the 1996 law on the regulation of the press which punishes journalists with prison in what it sees as crimes of publication,” said the party on Tuesday. “This is along with the cancellation of the penalties that deprive of freedom and replace them with financial fines.” The new party was established by Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris and calls upon the Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to implement these demands to the Supreme Military Council to take the necessary measures for their ratification and implementation. Sawiris' party sees the need to correct the situation created by this suspicious article by providing material and moral compensation for anyone who is proven harmed by it retroactively. “The moral and physical attacks against Egyptian and foreign journalists, who were trying to cover events during the January 25 revolution with honesty and transparency, necessitate the development of legal mechanisms to protect them and punish whoever tries to undermine their mission or put them at risk,” stated the press release of the party on occasion of the World Press Freedom Day. Almasreyeen al-Ahrrar is confident that the Egyptian Press Syndicate is superintendent of the defense of freedoms and supervises resistance against oppression. “This institution will activate the professional code of ethics of journalism in the era of freedoms and commit to its criteria and rules,” it stated. Egypt is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Rule 19 that “each person has the right to freedom of opinion and expression and this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, impart and receive information and ideas through any media and regardless of geographic frontiers.” “We believe that the new Egyptian state must adhere to its commitments of international conventions in order to retain the respect of everyone and recover the prestige of its leadership internationally and regionally,” added the party. “The adoption of a law that allows the free flow of information would entrench the principles of transparency, accountability and integrity, and enable the press to exercise its role as a fourth authority that seeks the advancement of Egypt through the revealed truths,” reads one principal of the party. BM
