CAIRO: The government is planning to implement new regulations to monitor the flow of information from the state to the press, according to Hafez Abu Saeda, director of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). Abu Saeda told Daily News Egypt that the new law will regulate the type of information and documents the state is allowed to disclose to the media. The new law will also specify which documents can be made public, which are confidential and why, Abu Saeda added. The state will assign a certain person or entity with the responsibility of releasing the news to the press. On a related note, Abu Saeda says that EOHR is preparing to draft an amendment to the press law, canceling prison sentences for journalists, which it believes gags freedom of expression. The draft law will include amendments to Articles 188 and 203 of the penal code, which Abu Saeda says are vaguely worded and can be interpreted in more than one way. A group of civil society activists, professors of mass communication, and journalists are involved in helping draft and advocate the implementation of these new regulations. This comes on the heels of the arrests of seven journalists - including five chief editors - in September. On Sunday, 22 independent and opposition daily newspapers did not publish in protest of the lengthy jail sentences recently handed down to the journalists. Adel Hammouda, editor of Al-Fajr weekly, Wael Al-Ibrashy, editor of Sout Al-Omah weekly, and Abd Al-Halim Kandil, former editor of Al-Karama newspaper, along with Ibrahim Eissa were all sentenced to a year in prison and a LE 20,000 fine for intentionally insulting President Mubarak, his son and the ruling party. Despite what many journalists and activists argue, Safwat El-Sherif, head of the Shoura Council and the Higher Press Council, told the official Middle East News Agency in a recent statement that the Egyptian press is free and that press freedom is one of the foundations of democracy. Magdy Mehana, a columnist with Al-Masry Al-Youm, denounced El-Sherif's statement in his Tuesday Oct. 9 column, accusing El-Sherif of lacking objectivity and of being biased towards the government and the National Democratic Party.
