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the recent appointment of the new minister of information, Salah Abd El-Maqsoud, a MB membe

Traditionally the ranks of the Brotherhood have held professionals including doctors, lawyers, engineers, and teachers. They count precious few artists, columnists, or authors in their fold and as a result tend to be significantly more underrepresented than other political parties. Apparently, they've taken it to heart. Salah Eissa, the assistant secretary general of the syndicate told the Egypt Independent in June that the FJP's paper had recently published several articles that spoke of "purging the press of liberals and leftists."

On August 9, Khaled Salah, the editor-in-chief of Al-Youm Al-Sabei, a paper that has been increasingly critical of the Brotherhood, was attacked by what he said were MB protesters on his way to his television program. The attackers, whom he claimed were holding pro-Morsi banners also smashed the windscreen, windows, and mirrors of his car, calling him "one of those who antagonized Morsi." Nor was he the only one; Youssef el-Hosseini, appearing on the same program, was also attacked. MB spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan categorically denied the charges but the banners were identified by independent witnesses. An investigation is underway.

Journalists listened warily to Morsi's comments earlier this week on supporting "the idea of forming a national council to oversee state and private media." In Egypt, the words "National Council" are usually synonymous with "Government Stranglehold."

Louis Greiss, former editor of the state-owned weekly Sabah el-Kheir said the Brotherhood might not know what they're up against. "Egypt's press has had 200 years of government intimidation," he said. "There's always a way around it. They always get tired before we do."

According to a number of Hamas officials interviewed by Al-Monitor, the movement felt that it lacked the proper venue on other Palestinian, Arab and foreign media outlets to express its views, because those outlets are biased toward either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Israel and limit their coverage to exposing the movement’s negative aspects, without any mention of its positive ones.

Hamas gives great importance to the media, and has tried on more than one occasion to pressure media outlets into adopting its point of view or political line. Its dispute with Fatah also compelled Hamas to try to control the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in Gaza, where Fatah controlled the majority of board members. Hamas formed its own Journalists Syndicate board of directors in Gaza, composed of journalists affiliated with the movement and Islamic Jihad. But the experiment quickly proved to be a failure when the board announced its resignation several months later.

“The channel’s discourse will be different from the one adopted by other Hamas-affiliated media outlets. It will express the point of view of the government and will not be similar to that of the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa satellite channel. We will try to focus attention on the human aspect and the suffering of people, as well as the positive qualities of Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip,”

“There was a clear mix-up, in Arab and foreign countries, between the stance of the Gaza government and that of Hamas as a movement, after the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi. As a result of satellite channels abroad being agreeable to the Muslim Brotherhood, and our lack of control over their editorial policies, it became necessary for us to have our own television channel that would target Arab and Western audiences and clarify the government’s stance independently.”

the Gaza government still bars the distribution of West Bank newspapers in Gaza, in retaliation for the PA’s ban on the distribution of Hamas-affiliated newspapers in the West Bank. Hamas continues to forbid Fatah-affiliated media offices from conducting business in Gaza, but has allowed some of their reporters to file from Gaza, in return for the Ramallah government allowing Al-Aqsa TV and Al-Quds reporters to work there

he hoped that his prosecution would “throw the spotlight on the cases of others unjustly detained in Egypt, especially the jailed journalists." Since the military takeover of the country in July 2013, tens of thousands of political opposition figures have been arrested and detained as part of a sweeping security crackdown on dissent that has targeted Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters as well as secular activists, researchers, journalists and intellectuals

Balshy on April 4 published a list of some 40 journalists in Egypt who were either imprisoned or under threat of being detained

While there has hardly been any noise over the jailing of journalists with alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the verdicts against Naaot and Nagy and the arrest warrant against Balshy provoked outrage in Egypt. After an outcry in Egyptian media over the conviction of Naaot, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last week urged parliament to review the country’s blasphemy laws, which critics have denounced as outdated and harmful. Meanwhile, in an outpouring of anger on social media over Nagy’s conviction, activists have campaigned for the novelist’s release using the Arabic hashtag that translates into #CreativityOnTrial.

Twenty-two rights organizations, six political parties and nearly 100 individuals signed a strongly worded petition condemning the warrant for Balshy’s arrest as “an attack on the media.”

Until recently, much of the Egyptian media and the majority of Egyptians had also rejected international criticism of the restrictions on the media in Egypt, perceiving the criticism as “part of the foreign conspiracy to destroy Egypt.” Lately however, there has been an almost abrupt turnabout with more journalists — including regime loyalists and those who had previously practiced self-censorship — becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of “the muzzling of journalists through intimidation tactics” and “the unfair detention of writers and researchers.”

The regime clearly has not learned the lesson from Mubarak’s unplugging of the Internet during the 2011 uprising — a move that fueled the anger against the former dictator, leading to his ultimate overthrow. The government must acknowledge that the right to information and freedom of expression are basic human rights.

Ziada was previously arrested by Egyptian authorities in December 2013 while filming arbitrary arrests prior to protests at al-Azhar University in Cairo. He was held in pre-trial detention for 16 months, where he was subjected to physical violence and torture. He was finally released in May 2015 after being acquitted of all charges. Later that year, Ziada was severely wounded when two unidentified individuals stabbed him repeatedly near the Cairo University metro station in an attack that Egyptian human rights groups widely believe was connected to his journalism.

Mashrou’ Leila was later banned by the Syndicate of Musical Professions from performing in Egypt for performing “abnormal art”.

police have often relied on anti-debauchery laws to arrest and detain both homosexuals and supporters of homosexuality on charges of debauchery, blasphemy and others. Similarly, private citizens have also raised lawsuits against a number of figures for promoting the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Over the past few years, Egyptian authorities have arrested several Al Jazeera employees, with some being accused of conspiring with "the devil" to destabilise the country. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 25 journalists have been imprisoned in Egypt in 2016, making it the world's third-worst jailer of reporters after Turkey and China.

Long committed to a free media, Mustafa Amin was imprisoned for six months in 1939 for an article in Akher sa‘a (Last Hour) magazine deemed critical of King Faruq. An advocate of democracy and Western liberalism, he was arrested in 1965, tried secretly in 1966, and convicted of being a spy for America and smuggling funds. Sentenced to a life sentence, he spent nine years in prison before being pardoned by Nasser’s successor, President Anwar Sadat. Ali Amin, accused by Heikal of working for British and Saudi intelligence, went into exile in 1965.

Room for expression existed mainly in the literary pages of al-Ahram, where writers under Heikal’s wings, like Naguib Mahfouz, could publish works of fiction that could be read as challenges to the status quo.[5] As far as the press was concerned, censorship was directed at politically oriented news and commentary rather than the literary sections

During the conflict, as the Egyptian army, under Field Marshal Abd al-Hakim Amer’s command, was hastily retreating from Sinai, broadcast outlets aired invented reports of fabulous victories against the Zionist foe. At no other moment did the state media prove so woefully deficient, contributing to a deep sense of public betrayal.

The speech was written for him by prominent journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal and tactfully framed a romp of Arab armies as a “setback,” displaying Heikal’s knack for being both a propagandist and political powerbroker.   It was a moment that brilliantly served to shore up Nasser’s support. Egyptians took to the streets demanding that their leader stay in power. “The People Say ‘No,’” declared Akhbar al-youm (News of the Day) in large red writing. In smaller black lettering the headline read, “The Leader Discloses the Whole Truth to the People.” It is difficult to say how populist and genuine the appeal was and how much of the public display of support for Nasser was behind-the-scenes political machinations of the regime and its media. While Nasser did stay in power, it was only later that Egyptians could comprehend the true extent of the defeat—especially in light of official propaganda—and the institutional failures that placed the whole of Sinai under Israeli control.

slogans shouted and scrawled on building walls that demanded: “Stop the Rule of the Intelligence,” “Down with the Police State,” and “Down with Heikal’s Lying Press.”

Student periodicals posted on the walls of the campuses emerged as the freest press in Egypt. Nasser for the first time became the object of direct criticism in the public space. A campaign against student unrest was waged in the state-owned media, which labeled the activists as provocateurs and counter-revolutionaries goaded by foreign elements

“A centralized editorial secretariat, called the Desk, was founded, as well as the Center for Strategic Studies and the Information Division. To his detractors, these innovations appeared to be spying sessions of an extensive empire dedicated to intelligence gathering

Nasser appointed Heikal to the post of minister of information and national guidance, a role he assumed for six months in 1970 until Nasser’s death. Yet the self-described journalist confided his frustration of being assigned a ministerial post, perhaps intended to distance him from the publishing empire he built, to a colleague, the leftist writer Lutfi al-Khouli, at his home. The encounter was surreptitiously recorded by the secret police, leading to the arrest and brief imprisonment of al-Khouli, and Heikal’s secretary and her husband, who were also present. “Now, Nasser’s regime had two aspects: it had great achievements to its credit but also it had a repressive side. I do not myself believe that the achievements . . . could have been carried out without some degree of enforcement,” Heikal wrote in The Road to Ramadan. “But after the 1967 defeat the positive achievements came to an end, because all resources were geared to the coming battle, while repression became more obvious. When Nasser died the executants of repression took it on themselves to be the ideologues of the new regime as well. They held almost all the key posts in the country. The people resented this and came to hate what they saw as their oppressors.”

after his increasing criticism of Sadat’s handling of the October 1973 War and appeals to the United States to address the impasse, Heikal was removed from al-Ahram in 1974. He remained a prolific author. In May 1978, Heikal was one of dozens of writers accused by the state prosecutor of defaming Egypt and weakening social peace and was subject to an interrogation that extended three months

Sadat attempted to bring the dissident cacophony into line through the mass arrest in September 1981 of more than 1,500 intellectuals, writers, journalists, and opposition elements of every stripe. Among those arrested were leading members of the Journalists’ Syndicate and prominent figures like the political writer Muhammad Hassanein Heikal and novelist Nawal El Saadawi. Sadat’s crackdown against his opponents culminated in his assassination by Islamic militants on October 6, 1981 during a military parade to commemorate the start of the 1973 War. Soon after Hosni Mubarak assumed power, Heikal was released from prison

When Dream aired the lecture Heikal gave at the American University in Cairo, direct pressure was placed on the owner’s business interests, and the veteran journalist found a new forum on pan-Arab satellite broadcasting. The influential writer has made opposition to Gamal Mubarak’s succession a staple of his newspaper columns.

With the rise of satellite television, Qatar’s Al Jazeera commanded audiences not only with news but with popular discussion programmed, like Ma‘ Heikal (With Heikal), a program by Heikal that began the year after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and which was watched by the Arab public with eager interest. Seated behind a desk and looking into the camera, Heikal gave his narrative of historical events and commentary on Middle Eastern and world affairs, exposing the intrigues of regional and global powers from his perch, having privileged access to leaders, diplomats, and decision makers. He has been a critic of Saudi diplomacy, its ballooning regional influence given the power of petrodollars, and its confrontation with Iran. Saudi pundits have consistently taken potshots at Heikal.

A couple of months before Morsi’s ouster on July 3, 2013, Heikal was contacted by Morsi’s defense minister Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi for a meeting, which had led to speculation that the Heikal devised the behind-the-scenes scenarios for an elected president’s removal as the dominant political player, the Muslim Brotherhood, was sinking in popularity. After Morsi was expelled from office, Heikal suggested to the military leader that he seek a popular mandate to lead the country, mirroring Nasser-style populism. Attired in full military regalia, al-Sisi at a July 24, 2013 graduation ceremony of the naval and air defence academies, broadcast live, warned that national security was in peril and summoned nationwide rallies two days later. Heikal supported al-Sisi’s bid for the presidency viewing him as the candidate born of necessity.