CAIRO - The Ministry of Information's busting of the Cairo-based office of the Qatari television channel Al-Jazeera, hours after Friday's tragic riots, during which the Israeli Embassy, and several public and private properties in Giza were stormed and looted, coincided with the Government, in collaboration with the Military Council, announcing that it will use the Emergency Law to help maintain law and order. Last week's riots have given rise to serious warnings that Egypt will descend into anarchy unless the security authorities tighten their grip on outlaws, anarchists and subversive lobbyists allegedly belonging to the disgraced National Democratic Party. Minister of Information Osama Heikal told the press that the reactivation of the Emergency Law goes against the grain of the post-revolution Government of Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. The Emergency Law, which was imposed throughout Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign, empowers the Minister of Information to harshly discipline local or foreign media, which allegedly violate their Code of Ethics. Rearmed with the powers of the Emergency Law, which had almost been suspended since Mubarak was toppled on February 11, Heikal ordered the closure of Al-Jazeera on the pretext that it does not have an official licence to broadcast programmes from Cairo. The irony is that the decision appears to have landed on the heads of Al-Jazeera's officials rather late, as, for six months, they were able to broadcast allegedly sensational coverage of the revolution and its aftermath. The closed channel worked without official permission and the Minister only got angry when he was informed of this. The apparently weak allegations, the Minister used to justify his raid on Al-Jazeera should suggest that the Qatari channel was causing a painful headache to Egypt's Government. Heikal's attitude towards the freedom of expression has come under further suspicion, because of his warning other television channels and independent and opposition newspapers to reconsider the content of their news, if they don't want to meet a similar fate.
