EGYPT: Be careful of what you broadcast

Egypt is using a new media law to prosecute the owner of a satellite TV company for his role in broadcasting violent anti-government street protests. The law, passed by the Arab League in February, is the latest attempt by regimes in the region to silence independent satellite channels.

Charges have been filed against Nader Gohar, owner of the Cairo News Co., which provides links and equipment to Al Jazeera, BBC and other international networks. Police raided Cairo News in April after Al Jazeera broadcast images of riot police battling with protesters in Mahalla, a Nile Delta town where 27,000 textile workers have been protesting inflation and low salaries.

Gohar is expected to be tried later this month for broadcasting without permission. His company has been shut down and he faces fines and up to one year in prison. Human Rights Watch has called the charges part of a campaign by the government of President Hosni Mubarak to “stifle freedom of the press.”

The Arab League law, sponsored Saudi Arabia and Egypt, pressures channels from broadcasting transmissions that “negatively affect social peace, national unity, public order and public morals” or “defame leaders, or national and religious symbols [of other Arab states].”

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Cairo's rooftops are a sea of TV satellite dishes. (BBC)

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