No to the Law Destroying Journalism: No to Unified Media

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

The regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi continues to excel in enacting laws that restrict freedoms, ensuring that its practices are not exposed and its injustices against the people are concealed, especially amidst successive waves of inflation following the removal of subsidies on goods and services in compliance with the International Monetary Fund’s conditions.

Sisi’s apparatuses have secretly enacted a law for the press, named “The Law Regulating the Work of Journalism and Media,” in violation of Article 77 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the opinion of professional syndicates must be sought on draft laws concerning them,” by not presenting the law to the Journalists’ Syndicate. The law contains numerous provisions targeting the remnants of the press and media after the state blocked hundreds of websites, nationalized newspapers, websites, and satellite channels, and imposed censorship through appointed media and press bodies. These provisions include restrictive laws that reintroduced pretrial detention for journalists, despite journalists winning their right to publish without the threat of imprisonment through previous battles with the authorities. The law even includes provisions that imprison journalists under vague accusations and explicitly targets the participation of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation in disciplining journalists alongside the Journalists’ Syndicate.

Instead of allowing freedom for professional journalistic work in national institutions, the law shackles these institutions with new restrictions, treating them as profit-driven entities and opening the door to privatization and workforce reduction. This is evident in the law’s provisions, which include clauses that reduce the participation of employees, especially journalists, in management by decreasing the number of elected members in general assemblies and increasing the number of appointed members from outside the institutions. As per the new law, journalists no longer have the right to representation in their “journalistic” institutions, except for two representatives, which is unprecedented in national journalism’s history. Additionally, the law imposes further nationalization on national institutions by placing them under the management of the “governmental” National Press Authority, prohibiting these institutions’ boards from making any decisions without the authority’s approval. The authority’s head now serves as the chairman of the general assemblies in these institutions, and the law mandates a levy of 1% of their revenues, not profits, depriving them of any opportunity to pay off their debts.

To further pressure journalists and plunge them into poverty, the state deprived them of the “mandatory extension of service” to 65 years, except for close journalists, dubbed “those with rare expertise.” It also canceled the end-of-service bonus for all journalists in national institutions (one month for each year of service).

Sisi’s apparatuses took advantage of the law’s issuance to tighten the noose on private pages on the social networking site “Facebook,” depriving Egyptians of any outlet to express their opinions without media representing them. The state granted itself the legal right to block and close personal pages.
As the Revolutionary Socialists stand in solidarity with journalists in their battle against this law, they call on all segments of the Egyptian people to include the freedom of the press and media among their demands in any movement against the attack on their interests and gains. Sisi and his regime want a populace that is oblivious, hearing and seeing only the misinformation, distortion, and falsification broadcast by their propagandists.