Ahmed Ramadan - Istanbul
The Arab Observatory for Media Freedom inaugurated its annual report on violations of media freedom in Egypt 2019, during a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey, in the presence of a group of media and media work icons.
The report entitled "Media Officers" dealt with the most prominent violations against journalists in the past year, describing it as a year of the militarization of the media, by re-launching the Ministry of Information again in implementation of the vision of the President of the Republic which he declared about the necessity of media alignment behind the leadership similar to the media of the sixties that the late president envied Jamal Abdulnasser.
The Arab Observatory for Media Freedom was established in Istanbul with the aim of detecting violations against media freedom, media professionals and freedom of expression, and providing technical and legal support.
The total number of violations against journalists reached 532 violations, according to the report, including 35 new cases of imprisonment for journalists and five cases of re-imprisonment pending new cases, in addition to the exposure of six journalists to imprisonment or temporary detention during the year.
The report indicated that the journalist Alia Awad continues to be imprisoned, whose health conditions have deteriorated greatly and the prison administration continues to refuse to transfer her to a hospital outside the prison to perform the necessary surgeries and receive the necessary medical care.
Cases of imprisonment and temporary detention topped the list of violations during the year with 116 violations, followed by arbitrary administrative decisions (106), and precautionary measures (73), prison violations (61), prevention from coverage (43), publishing restrictions (32), raids, closures, and blocking (19) and prevention from Travel (9), and then legislative restrictions (3). The total number of violations faced by female journalists was 37.
Inform the officers
On the reasons for naming the report as “officers’ information, ”the head of the Arab Observatory for Media Freedom, Qutb Al-Arabi, said in exclusive statements to Al-Jazeera Net that the report focuses mainly on the paths of militarization and repression in 2019, and the continued escalation of military influence over the media, represented in several aspects, including changing and replacing many Among the leaders responsible for the media system, and granting powers to the team Mahmoud Hegazy.
Al-Arabi indicated that one of the manifestations of militarization is the return of the Ministry of Information again after its abolition in 2014 in order to fully supervise this file through its various tracks.
He stressed that the annual report of the observatory included violations against the families of media professionals opposed to the regime, as happened with the media Moataz Matar, Hamza Zoba, Haytham Abu Khalil, Muhammad Nasser, Sami Kamal and others, in an attempt by the current system to influence them and stop their opposition to it.