The number of publishing offence cases against Egyptian journalists has dramatically dropped in 2009, a Cairo-based human rights organisation has said. Despite the state of emergency in force since 1981, a smaller number of Egypt's journalists has been sued for committing publishing offences last year, the Arab Network for Human Rights said in a report. However, the report said that last year witnessed the revoking of the licence of a Cairo literary magazine, Ibdaa (Creativity), for publishing a blasphemous poem by Helmy Salem. Two months later, the supreme administrative court found that there had been no legal basis to revoke the licence of the magazine.
