Publication: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Link to published article found here

A protester walking with a laptop above his head during the 2012 Tahrir Square protest in Cairo. Social media played a key role in the organization and mobilization of some of Egypt’s largest protests. (DANIEL BEREHULAK/GETTY IMAGES)

A new law that gives the state-run Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) the ability to judge the validity of news has now gone into full effect in Egypt. Under the law—passed by parliament last July and approved by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in September—SCMR is authorized to sanction any journalist or news entity that spreads “false news.” SCMR commissioners are appointed by President Sisi.

SCMR’s secretary general Ahmed Selim told the Washington Report that over 120 websites have thus far applied to legalize their status. Media outlets were required to apply by Jan. 31, 2019. “Websites that do not submit the required documents to legalize their status under the new law will be blocked,” Selim warned.

In addition to traditional print media, the council also has the power to block news websites or social media accounts that engage in “fake news.” Selim said he defines fake or false news as “any content that is published or is to broadcast from unknown sources and contributes to spreading hate speech among society.”

No official legal guidance has been offered as to what constitutes false news, meaning that such determinations appear to be up to the discretion of the SCMR.

The law has raised concerns among journalists, newspaper companies and civil society members who fear that it is yet another tool to silence dissent in Egypt.

One concern is that the law has a very broad definition of who is considered a journalist, as even bloggers and social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers are defined as media outlets. Critics deem this provision unreasonable, believing that personal blogs, non-journalistic outlets and persons not working in journalism should be exempted.

The law also places steep regulatory fees that most small news outlets cannot afford. News outlets are obliged to pay EGP 50,000 ($2,795) just to register for a media license, and up to EGP 2 million ($113,000) if their five-year license is approved. These requirements are applied on new websites planning to operate as a media outlet, as well as on websites that are already operational.

Media outlets who fail to comply with the new media regulations will be subjected to license revocation and charged fines ranging from EGP 1 million to EGP 3 million ($55,900–$167,700). In an effort to avoid being extorted or charged a fine, some websites have decided to suspended their operations. Others that have already been shut down involuntarily by the government, including local newspaper Al Bedaya, don’t view the new law as an opportunity to win back the approval of government officials.

“Al Bedaya was blocked among a blockage wave in mid- 2017. Six months after the blockage we decided to suspend operations because we were losing money, as the website was inaccessible to the public,” Al Bedaya newspaper founder Khaled Elbalshy explained to the Washington Report.

Elbalshy, who also co-founded Katib, a news website focused on documenting human rights violations in Egypt, said that the new law is simply a government tool to censor speech. “The law is another way to limit freedom of journalism, thwarting professional journalists from pursuing their careers in Egypt,” he said.

Katib was blocked only nine hours after it was launched in June 2018. Unlike Al Bedaya, Elbashy said he is attempting to reinstate Katib, but efforts to get the site restored have been unsuccessful. This raises questions as to how SCMR interacts with other government agencies and how, or if, it plans to accommodate websites that are already blocked if they are willing to follow the provisions of the new law.

“We applied to reconcile and legalize our status under the new law,” Elbashy explained. “We asked if the state would remove the blockage if we comply with requirements, but the council claimed that they are not responsible for the blockage and that we have to refer to the government body that passed the blockage decision. Thus, it was useless to proceed with the legalization process, as there was no guarantee that the website would be unblocked.”

Selim of the SCMR, however, insisted that blocked websites that comply with all legal and financial requirements set by the law will be unblocked. He did not reveal details about the process or who will be in charge of lifting the blocks on websites.

Many journalists and observers are not confident in the good will of the new law and its enforcers.

“The law has been criticized intensely by many journalists and the Journalism Syndicate for requiring substantial fines and fees and verifying the right to block websites,” commented Mohamed Fawzy, editor in chief of Al Tahrir newspaper, one of the local papers that is currently legalizing their operational status under the new law.

In November, France’s Reporters without Borders (RSF) criticized the new law in a released statement, specifically denouncing the “intolerable financial conditions and free speech parameters that aggravate the already oppressive climate online, including independent media.”

Sophie Anmuth, head of RSF’s Middle East desk, said in the statement, “the implementation of this very coercive media law has a clear political objective—to silence the last independent voices. We are facing the probable extinction or exile of Egypt’s last independent media.”

A CONTINUING TREND

Sherif Mansour, Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), explained that the law simply builds on previous state repression. “President Sisi has previously warned the public against what he referred to as the ‘evil power’ of using social media to disseminate false news, however the new law allows authorities to monitor and control the media and decide violations based on their personal interpretations,” he said.

Over 400 websites have been blocked in Egypt since 2017, according to a report by the Association of Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE). This includes news websites, human rights and civil society pages, independent newspapers and personal blogs.

Some of the prominent websites blocked include RSF, Al Jazeera, Mada Masr, the Huffington Post and Daily News Egypt, only to mention a few.

According to the AFTE report, most of these blocked websites are news websites, which contradicts Article 71 of the Egyptian constitution, which states that it is impermissible to censor or suspend Egyptian newspapers and media outlets except in times of war or general mobilization.

More than 40 journalists have been jailed between 2017 and 2018 alone, over charges of spreading fake news and criticizing the government, according to data from the CPJ. Egypt is ranked 161 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.