CAIRO: Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match, Cleopatra was told by a hapless messenger conveying the news that her beloved Antony had jilted her, according to Shakespeare. As with journalists in Egypt today, he was trying to save his eyesight. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counts more than 50 journalists in Egypt shot at, sexually assaulted, beaten, or detained in the past two months. Security forces shot at least two journalists and a third was beaten up in police custody in the last few days. Police fired pellets at Mahmoud Al-Ghazali, a correspondent for Nile TV as he reported on clashes between protesters and security forces in downtown Cairo on Saturday morning. One went straight into his eye causing extensive injury, according to the CPJ. Online journalist Salma Said was shot around 1 a.m. on Monday by security forces while she filmed clashes in Bab Al-Louq neighborhood in central Cairo. She said three pellets hit her in the face, along with dozens more in her legs and stomach putting her in hospital. Mohamed Rabee, a correspondent for the online independent daily Al-Badil, was grabbed downtown and beaten by plainclothes cops for an hour after they caught him dictating copy to his editor. Without truth seekers such as these brave people we would know nothing. Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator says Egyptian authorities have an obligation to enforce the law, seek and punish the culprits. These attacks show how tenuous the situation is for journalists in Egypt. Authorities must ensure journalists are able to carry out their work unharmed, Dayem says. The pattern is clear. SCAF and its puppets want to operate in a murky fearful world devoid of human rights. Cornered, they resort to medieval methods. Faced with their vindictiveness they bolt cowardly. On Monday SCAF's delegation seeking aid for the military fled Washington DC rather than explain themselves. According to Reuters the Egyptian Embassy said the delegation had cancelled its meetings this week with US lawmakers. The Egyptian delegation had been scheduled to see Senators including Carl Levin and John McCain, the Democratic chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Last week, the Egyptian army delegation met State Department officials who outlined both the US position on the pro-democracy NGOs and the new conditions that Congress imposed recently on American military aid, which runs out in March. The conditions say that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must certify that Egypt is holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate foreign aid subcommittee, said he would not favor continuing US military aid to Egypt even with conditions if it continued its crackdown on local and US-funded pro-democracy groups. Leahy told Reuters he would not agree to continuing funding money to Egypt that reflects the assumption that they are committed to democracy, if they are not. How is Senator Leahy's virulent opposition to continuing aid to Egypt linked to firing birdshot into the eyes of journalists in and around Tahrir Square? The pen is mightier than the sword — English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1839) in his play Richelieu. Freedom of expression is the underpinning of America's independence — the right of a people to determine their own future, not to be subjugated. The US Constitution's First Amendment says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. James Madison's original draft of the Bill of Rights said: ‘The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. Each phrase is pertinent in Egypt today and exposes SCAF as a perpetrator of secret self-interest. Without the assistance of NGOs to help democratic movements to foster freedom of choice we would not have witnessed the overwhelming joy of Egyptians lining up for hours to cast their votes, unmolested by the bully boys of old who for decades trucked in their supporters, well-bribed and cajoled. There is good reason to believe the Egyptian government will retreat from holding a trial of the NGOs. The rights Madison espoused and which have been fought for the world over would attract international jurists from the four corners of the earth. A trial could last months, possibly years – with Egypt in the dock, its credibility being chipped away by the masters of human rights debate. In the meanwhile any attempt to restore relations with the free world would be on hold. Perhaps the generals and their puppets don't care. Perhaps they want to throw in their lot with the likes of China and Russia, Iran and Burma. Some say they've decided already to junk America, the EU, the West and other democracies. What would that mean? An end to free speech, the messengers expelled or silenced. These days test the mettle of the young revolutionaries and their supporters. They rose in influence by mobilizing public opinion. Now they must use the goodwill they generated and the undoubted respect they have in the community to convey the threat to freedom's march. Every revolution comes to this point. It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own — Herbert Hoover (1874 –1964), 31st President of the United States. Philip Whitfield is a Cairo-based commentator.
