[hr-media] Egypt: Prison for Al-Jazeera journalist who exposed torture

Need to Reform Laws Used to Silence Critics

(Cairo, May 3, 2007) -- The sentencing of Al-Jazeera journalist Huwaida
Taha Mitwalli to six months in prison for her reporting on torture in
Egypt makes a mockery of World Press Freedom Day, Human Rights Watch said
today.

Mitwalli, an Egyptian national who also reports for the London-based daily
Quds al-Arabi, was convicted by a Cairo criminal court on May 2 for
"possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in
Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country" in connection with
an Al-Jazeera documentary about torture in Egypt. The court also fined her
20,000 Egyptian pounds (US$3,518).

"Egypt's sorry record of torture is only made worse by its practice of
punishing journalists who dare to speak about it," said Joe Stork, deputy
director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights
Watch.

On January 8, 2007, security officers at Cairo airport prevented Mitwalli
from leaving the country and confiscated her videotapes and computer as
she tried to board a flight to Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is headquartered.
On January 12 she received a summons to appear at the Supreme State
Security Court the following day, where security officials held her
overnight for questioning and then released her on bail. Mitwalli then
returned to Qatar, where she remains pending appeal of her conviction.

"Mitwalli's prosecution is the latest in a recent series of egregious
government violations of freedom of expression," said Stork.

On April 14, 2007, security officers arrested television journalist and
blogger `Abd al-Monim Mahmud at Cairo airport as he tried to board a plane
for Sudan to work on a story about human rights abuses in the Arab world
for the London-based Al-Hiwar satellite channel. Mahmud, who is affiliated
with the Muslim Brotherhood, had recently written in his blog about his
experience of torture in 2003, and prior to his arrest he spoke out about
torture in Egypt at conferences in Doha and Cairo and in interviews with
journalists and human rights organizations. He is currently in Tura
prison, outside Cairo, awaiting trial on charges of "membership in a
banned organization."

On March 12, 2007, the Alexandria Court of Appeals upheld the four-year
prison sentence against `Abd al-Karim Nabil Sulaiman, a blogger who had
criticized Islam and President Hosni Mubarak. And on March 10, secular
activist and blogger Mohammad al-Sharqawi – himself a victim of
police torture – returned home to find that his laptop, which he
said contained an unreleased video depicting police abuse, had been
stolen. Cash and other valuables in the apartment were untouched.

Human Rights Watch said that the charges against Mitwalli and other
journalists underscore the urgency of reforming Egypt's laws governing the
media. Amendments in July 2006 to the Press Law left intact article
102(bis) of the Penal Code, which allows for the detention of "whoever
deliberately diffuses news, information/data, or false or tendentious
rumors, or propagates exciting publicity, if this is liable to disturb
public security, spread horror among the people, or cause harm or damage
to the public interest."

"Instead of addressing the abuses journalists report, the Egyptian
government has once again used laws that violate basic freedoms to silence
its critics," said Stork.

As a state party to key international and regional human rights treaties,
including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Egypt has pledged to protect
the right to freedom of expression.

Human Rights Watch Press release