The International Press Institute (IPI) today condemned provisions of a proposed new anti-terrorism law in Egypt that would criminalise contradicting official reports on militant attacks, calling it a dangerous move to censor critical voices.
A newly drafted anti-terrorism bill, reportedly intended to counteract mounting militant attacks, threatens those who contradict official figures such as death tolls - particularly when reporting on such attacks - with at least two years in prison.
The move followed a series of deadly militant attacks, including a jihadist attack on the military last Wednesday in the Sinai Peninsula, in which several news outlets reported death tolls to be higher than that of official military reports. The military said at least 17 soldiers and more than 200 militants were killed in the July 1 attack, a lower figure than local and international reports, which said military casualties were between 50 and 70.
The proposed bill, which has received waves of criticism for its apparent assault on journalism, was approved by the Cabinet and the State Council and is currently pending before President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is expected to approve it later this week.
Hundreds of soldiers have been killed by militants in the past two years since the military deposed Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi. The Egyptian government has responded by introducing increasingly restrictive legislation to combat terrorism, but which also imposes further restrictions on the media.
After the Sinai attack and the assassination of Egypt's top prosecutor two days earlier, President al-Sisi vowed to speed up prosecution of terrorism cases. But that comes at the cost of stifling the media's freedom to report. Egypt's Foreign Ministry also recently advised journalists to refer to militant groups as "slaughterers, executioners, assassins, slayers, destroyers and eradicators" in their reporting.
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Despite criticism from human rights organisations and other groups - including the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, which claimed provisions in the bill were "dangerous and unjust" toward the media - government officials said limiting the media's ability to report news was not the intention. Egyptian Justice Minister Ahmed el-Zend told Agence France-Presse that he hoped "no one interprets this as a restriction on media freedoms," adding: "It's just about numbers."
But IPI Director of Advocacy and Communication Steven M. Ellis rejected that argument, criticising the proposed bill as yet another step away from media freedom for the country.
"We urge President al-Sisi not to move forward with this bill," he said. "Granting the government a monopoly on certain information not only tramples on the rights of journalists and the public to share and receive news, it creates a situation rife with potential for abuse. Prohibiting dissent is the worst way to try to shore up credibility and this is one more dangerous development in a country that has already seen far too many threats to free expression in recent years."
Among others, those threats include the ongoing imprisonment of at least 18 journalists, according to numbers released recently by the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the arrests last week of another four journalists in connection with accusations that they belong to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood.
