Newspaper editors in Egypt sentenced for reporting 'false information' on presidential succession

The editors of four newspapers were given year-long sentences in Egypt for reporting “false information” that President Hosni Mubarak intended to his son succeed him, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Egypt’s next presidential elections take place in 2011. Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son, was recently named to the National Democratic Party’s Supreme Council. Only council members are allowed to run for president, putting Gamal in place for the 2011 elections.

“Anything can happen in Egypt now, and there’s a certain amount of fear,” said Nabil Shawkat, a writer and commentator. “There’s no pressure on the government to democratize. It can do whatever it wants.”

President Bush said in 2004 that Egypt would set the democratic standard in the Middle East. When presidential elections were held in 2005, however, Mubarak began to crack down, beginning with the prosecution of his primary challenger, Ayman Nour. Nour was convicted of falsifying papers to legalize his Tomorrow party.

The editors were sentenced on September 14, but released on bail, pending appeal.

According to Human Rights Watch, “Press freedom does not exist in a country where the state can put you in prison simply for criticizing the president.”

Mubarak defended the prosecutions, telling the weekly Osboa newspaper, “Going too far in publishing lies and false information are issues that have nothing to do with freedom of the press but aim at causing chaos.”

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Egypt grapples with question of presidential succession

In Michael Slackman’s article in the International Herald Tribune Wednesday, he highlights a question on the minds of many Egyptians: “Who will take the place of President Hosni Mubarak?”

As Slackman notes, “Mubarak has been president for nearly three decades. He is the longest-serving president since the removal of the king, having served longer than Gamal Abdel Nasser, a pioneer of Arab nationalism, and longer than Anwar Sadat, the man who made peace with Israel. He is routinely referred to as Egypt’s modern-day pharaoh, though usually in a cautious whisper.”

Mubarak’s governing party, the National Democratic Party will hold a general assembly on Friday with six thousand five hundred delegates from around Egypt, including guests from around the world. The discussion will likely center on the economy, politics and counterterrorism. However, Slackman writes: “What they will not discuss, party officials said, is succession – arguably, and in many minds, one of the most important issues regarding Egypt's long-term stability.”

“Who will come after Mubarak? It is a question many people here ask, but as a party officials said after a briefing on the upcoming convention, ‘You will never get the answer you want,’” the article says.

“The issue of succession is regulated by the Constitution,” said Ali el Din Helal, a party official at a briefing in advance of the convention. “This is a country ruled by institutions, not by individuals.”

“That is the answer you get,” Slackman writes, in reference to el Din Helal’s comments. “But the issue is so sensitive that the government is prepared to put an editor in prison after his newspaper ran stories saying the president was in ill health. The government’s own prosecutors alleged that the news so shook the nation, it cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars. As the rumors swirled about the president’s health, Egypt’s chief religious official, appointed by the president, issued a religious edict, saying that journalists who spread rumors should receive 80 lashes.”

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