An Egyptian court on Thursday convicted the editor-in-chief of privately owned Al-Fagr newspaper of slandering a former official.
The Heliopolis Misdemeanor Court fined Adel Hammouda, who is also a presenter on the privately owned CBC satellite channel, LE10,000, and ordered him to pay LE40,000 to Gawdat al-Malt, the former head of the Central Auditing Organization who sued him for slander.
According to the lawsuit, Hammouda said on his TV program, “The President's Men,” that Malt was a "liar" and pretended to be poor despite actually possessing millions of pounds, a charge Malt considered an insult.
The conviction comes amid signs that freedom of the press is being increasingly restricted.
In 2011, Egypt dropped to number 166 on the annual Press Freedom Index, down from 127 in 2010, under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in January.
“Egypt fell because the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since February, dashed the hopes of democrats by continuing the Mubarak dictatorship’s practices,” RWB said.
The transitional period has seen many violations against the freedom of press. In one instance, a private channel sacked a presenter for severely criticizing the military council on a program she was hosting.
Last September, the printing of newspapers Rose al-Youssef and the Voice of the Nation was halted and they were forced to change some of their editorial material upon orders from a "sovereign body."
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
