“No,” says Mariam Sami, a former Associated Press correspondent in Cairo. “If freedom of speech does not improve, it will not decline. The government will be exposed if it decides to explicitly eliminate or imprison a journalist unjustifiably. They did that earlier, but now they have to go through legal channels.”
But Mariam’s former employment with the US-based news agency didn’t stop the authorities from spying on her. “Our phones were always bugged … They fear a US agency more than an Italian. News on AP [Associated Press] spreads. US officials will hear them, and Egypt cares about America.”
The same applies to Mohammed Said Mahfouz, a former Abu Dhabi TV presenter and a current presenter at the London-based BBC Arabic Channel. “I can’t forget the Egyptian diplomat in an Arab country who tried to question me on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, following my return from coverage in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2000! I believe journalists should expose this sort of pressure and those officials at all levels.”
A question of oppression. To Moha-mmed, this questioning pales in comparison to the Egyptian journalists who are not only tried in courts but expelled, transferred to the archives departments or deprived of their bylines as a result of their outspoken views. However, imprisonment laws are not the only real danger to Egyptian freedom of speech. The businessmen who own newspapers pose an-other problem.
“They have become family businesses. Owners campaign against other entrepreneurs to protect their welfare. Ahmed Bahgat, Sawiris and Medhat Barakat, co-owners of the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm, want bigger stakes. They will launch their own papers,” says al-Araby’s al-Sinawi.
Qandil and al-Askary reckon the same. For Alaskary, the government has been scheming to launch an “alternative media,” that are either owned by businessmen loyal to Gamal’s policies or have private battles to fight.
“A recent Egyptian TV program, “Dokou el-Mazaher” [for engaged couples], sponsored by steel controller Ahmed Ezz, is a clear example,” she adds. “We have free and slavery newspapers. In the free ones, some journalists rebel and defy imprisonment laws while in the slavery, we see sudden promotions of unprofessional junior spies.”
Although intimidation, threats and legal harassments have become typical work hazards, Egyptian journalists still believe nobody can cart off their achievements, or prevent the spread
of free speech to newspapers launched in the market, mostly owned by businessmen.
To attract readers they have to be daring, and for that they have to head-hunt for courageous Egyptian journalists and pay them more than state-run papers or independent competitors. Already, according to al-Saady, market rumors abound of a possible merger between loss-making state-run papers.
With poor salaries the norm in state-run media, better salaries may entice less courageous reporters to the better-paid independent media. The EJS is worried too that private media can’t absorb this potential migration. The mark of a successful journalist in Egypt is less likely to be their reportage, and more likely to be their ability to move quickly

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