Web editor’s arrest raises concern for civil liberties

The arrest of the editor of a local news website this week has raised fresh concerns among defenders of freedom of expression. “Such practices reflect the government’s lack of tolerance for freedom of expression and opinion,” said Mahmoud Aly of the Egyptian Association for the Support of Democracy. Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, the editor of Balady.net, a website devoted to local news and politics, was arrested on 5 December by state security officers. According to sources at the Egyptian Press Syndicate, his home was broken into by state security officers, who confiscated articles, books, CDs and hard discs containing written material. Mahmoud has not been informed of the charges against him. No one from the Ministry of Interior was available to comment on the issue. Mahmoud, who often writes under the name Abu Islam Ahmed, also works as a journalist for al-Haqiqa, Arabic for “the Truth,” an independent weekly reputedly dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood political group. This is not the first arrest of its kind in recent history. In October, Abdel Karim Nabil Suliman, a student and writer, was also arrested, reportedly due to articles he posted on the Internet. Some observers suspect that Mahmoud’s arrest is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood’s successes in recently-concluded parliamentary elections and to the subsequent crackdown by the government on the group’s supporters. According to Ibrahim Mansour of the Press Syndicate, the editor’s detention “is related to the recent arrest of nearly 2,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood.” International press-freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders registered its disapproval of the arrest on Wednesday. “Website journalists and bloggers should enjoy the same legal protection and respect as journalists working for traditional media,” the rights group stated in a press release. “The decision to arrest a journalist or blogger is serious and should only be taken in the course of transparent judicial proceedings,” the statement read. Despite a constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression and opinion, journalists in Egypt continue to face “numerous forms of discrimination,” including criminal prosecutions, death threats and even sexual assaults, according to a recent report by the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.