In a meeting with newspaper editors-in-chief, the Journalists Syndicate Council announced on June 8 its rejection of the continuous attack on the freedom of journalism in which state institutions, including the attorney general and the judiciary, have harassed and imprisoned journalists in an outright violation of the law and Constitution. The syndicate’s statement called for holding an urgent meeting between the syndicate’s council and President el-Sisi.
Journalist protests
In a meeting with newspaper editors-in-chief, the Journalists Syndicate Council announced on June 8 its rejection of the continuous attack on the freedom of journalism in which state institutions, including the attorney general and the judiciary, have harassed and imprisoned journalists in an outright violation of the law and Constitution. The syndicate’s statement called for holding an urgent meeting between the syndicate’s council and President el-Sisi.
Journalist protests
The syndicate’s statement came after announcing the journalists’ protest which included demonstrations and a symbolic sit-in against the imprisonment and unfair sacking of journalists, as well as the exclusion of non-syndicate journalists, including employees of Shrooq and Al-Alam Al-Youm.
Security forces arrested a journalist of Akhbar al-Youm newspaper from his home on June 9 and the attorney general has recently summoned three journalists of Bayan newspaper to an urgent criminal trial on charges of spreading false news and assuming fake journalist identities. Journalist Yousef Shaban, was sentenced to one year and three months in prison on fabricated charges, while other journalists are being held in provisional detention, including the photojournalist Mahmoud Shokan who was sentenced to 500 days imprisonment, in addition to many others.
“Journalism is witnessing its worst times,” said Khaled Balshi, a member of the Journalists Syndicate and editor-in-chief of Bidaya website. “The attack on it by state institutions is a mouth-shutting policy.”
On the institutional level, the very low salaries, the lack of adequate training and the absence of the journalists’ rights led to a terrible reality. Balshi is also a co-founder of the Front for Defending Journalists and Freedoms which was created a few months ago to defend journalists’ rights against the state and its institutions. Balshi believes it is essential that journalists and the syndicate put pressure on the state to stop its violations and send a message that journalists do will not give up their rights, which may constitute a deterrent against any future violations.
The syndicate, Balshi added, is trying to provide moral support for the non-member journalists while offering legal protection for its members by defending arrested journalists, submitting official pleas to the attorney general to release them, and intervening between the journalists and their institutions when they are sacked.
However, the syndicate’s capability remains limited as its law needs to be changed, but this will not happen without the will of the syndicate’s general assembly. In addition, new legislation to protect the freedom of journalism and media should be introduced. When the association fails to protect all journalists, new associations should be established.
Syndicate not a help to all journalists
One key problem facing journalists is the syndicate’s condition that journalists must work at a media institution on a permanent basis. Ahmed Jamal Ziyada is a journalist who is not a member in the syndicate and was arrested in December 2013 while he was covering a protest in front of the Azhar University. He was imprisoned for a year and a half before he was acquitted this past May.
“The syndicate’s former administration did not support me as a journalist and its lawyer attended only one session and left,” said Ziyada. “It was only a nominal attendance.” Ziyada now works for an online news site but has not bothered registering for the syndicate. “They won’t accept me as an online journalist.”
“Diyaa Rashwan, the syndicate’s former head, ignored the issue of arrested online journalists since they are not members of the syndicate,” he said. “Things have improved slightly when Yahya Qalash said the syndicate represents all journalists, but there must be legislation to protect them. It is not acceptable that Shokan has been in prison for two years and the syndicate is doing nothing about it,” he said referring to Mahmoud Shokan who has been in prison since dispersing the Rabea Sit-in on August 14, 2014.
“Journalists who work for websites are more subject to violations and arrest and the syndicate is powerless, since it cannot defend a non-member journalist,” said Amr Badr, editor-in-chief of the January Gate website and member of the Front for Defending Journalists.
“The syndicate’s last law was issued in 1966 and it does not allow online journalists to join it. However, it can allow them to join until they find permanent jobs,” he said.
Badr said the syndicate was not providing minimum support even for its members. There was a noticeable improvement with the advent of the new syndicate’s council including the attempt to improve the situation of the arrested journalists in prisons and providing them with legal and health support, but unfortunately without a real confrontation.
Institutions’ oppression
A. M. is one of 33 journalists sacked unjustifiably from Bawabat Al-Shrook website in May. “The administration decided to sack us without an official decision. They verbally informed us and said were entitled to receive half a month’s salary for each year we worked here,” said A.M. “After negotiating, we agreed on a salary of a month and a half which is less than what is stated in the regulations,” he said.
The journalists rejected this and decided to go on a partial strike. Other journalists at the website and the newspaper showed solidarity. They informed the work office, the insurance department and the syndicate, which sent a delegate to negotiate and support the journalists, but it said that it could only defend its members who were only 14 of the sacked group. The administration, he added, decided to harass them to force them to resign. “They moved us to a department called the ‘Follow-up and Rejection’ which required us to work from 1:00 till 8:00 PM without performing any tasks. Then, they tried to make us sign a document which says we received old and broken computers. The latest development was that the editor-in-chief told us that June’s salary will be paid according to the contract which means that all of us will take L.E. 1,000 (USD $131) despite our different salaries,” he said.
A.M. also added that the administration delayed sending his membership documents and those of his colleagues to the syndicate, he believes, to punish them for their activities to defend the journalists within the institution, although the journalists have not received regular salaries since June 2013.
Problems with the Bawabat Al-Shrook administration started in March 2011 when the latter refused to appoint the journalists and after pressure, they offered them inappropriate contracts. Consequently, the syndicate refused their membership. After a sit-in, strike and negotiation with the syndicate, the administration decided to appoint 10 out of 109 journalists.
“The institution’s sacking standards are personal rather than professional,” said A.M. In public, the syndicate says it protects all journalists and that sacking is a red line. However, it lacks the needed legal tools and, therefore, it resorts to friendly methods. When A.M. asked a member of the syndicate council about the association’s legal response to being sacked, the former replied that the association suspends the newspaper’s membership which is in fact not a punishment at all, since the institution stops paying the journalists’ financial rights to the syndicate and punishes the journalists through suspending their memberships in the syndicate.
“We would need a legal measure that suspends the editor-in-chief for a month,” said A.M., “and stopping the printing of the newspaper. But this will not happen because it requires courage.”
