Egypt: Prosecuting writers and journalists by 24 cases and reports on charges of insulting the president

Cairo January 20, 2013

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said 
the number of the cases against the journalists, media-professionals and writers due to allegations of insulting the president Mohamed Morsi in 200 days, which reached 24 cases.

It a new record in prosecuting the journalists, which is never achieved by any Egyptian president or a king, since adding this elastic accusations which was disregard by all the democratic countries in the world.

This report, which was issued by ANHRI and entitled “The Crime of Insulting the President, An Authoritarian Regime Crime”, included comparison between the president Morsi, which has been only 200 days in the term, and all the president, kings and Sultan of Egypt since the end of the 19th century and through the 20th century and until the end of the ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Despite the short period of Morsi in the term, which is the shortest until now, he topped the list of the users of the insulting the president indisputably.
As it reached 24 cases and report.

The second position was to the King Farouk, the last kings of Egypt before the revolution and who been to power for 16 years, by number of 7 prosecutions due to insulting the king.

Then in the third place came the ousted president Mubarak, by number of 4 cases, which included 6 defendants in 30 years of ruling, after that Khedive Abbas Hilmi II by number of 3 cases and 6 defendants during 22 years of being of power.

The most severe judgment, by the virtue of this article, was against the poet “Monier Saaid Hana” in 2009, which was issued by Maga’ah in Menya for three years imprisonment, but was acquitted in the appellate court while the citizen “Bishoy Camille Kamel” in the prison for 6 years, which was issued by the court of Tamah in the Sohag Governorate and insulting the president Morsi and three years of insulting Islam and a year of insulting another citizen.

The number of cases and reports of insulting the president in all the cases since the beginning of using it at the end of the 19 century, which reached since 1897 until 2009 (112 years) of 23 defendant, distributed among 14 cases, while the number of the cases during the term of the president were, (in 200 days), 24 cases and reports which included 23 defendant.