[The following report was issued by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information on 20 January 2013.]
The Crime of Insulting the President, A Crime of an Authoritarian Regime
Introduction
In the May of 1995, the Supreme Constitutional Court wrote significant lines in its judgment, which strongly support the freedom of expression, which included:
“Therefore, it is logically and inevitably that the constitution shall be biased to the freedom of discussion and dialogue in all the matters related to the public affairs, even if they included severe criticism to the public officers. It is not allowed to anyone to silence a third party, even if it was reinforced by law. The force dialogue is a waste to the reason of the mind and freedom of creativity, hope and imagination. In any case the force generates a dread between the citizens and the right to express their opinions, which could promote the desire to repress it. In addition to, it enhances the hostility of the public authority which opposes the freedom of expression which ultimately threatens the nation’s security and stability …”
However, as the former head of the journalists syndicate “Kamel Zohiry,” one of the pioneer advocates for the freedom of the press, said in his article in 2006, “it is natural, not naivety, that the government adopts an explicit and frank situation from the freedom of expression. In addition to repeal all the inherited penalties since the days of Cromer, Gorst, Boutros-Ghali, Tawfiq Nassim, Mohamed Mahmoud, and Ismail Sidqi. Hence we start and the reform begins because defending the freedom of the press is defending the freedom of the homeland and the citizen.”
Egypt revolted against Mubarak, against the regime of Mubarak; its old values and its corrupted dictatorship.
The Egyptians hunger for freedom; this made them stay in the streets, unafraid of the military courts of SCAF. The torture or the oppression which were exercised by the military police didn`t stop them…
SCAF left, but without being punished to any of its crimes, their impunity was a bad indicator to the rule of the first civil and elected president.
Severe violations committed against the freedom of expression, almost forty blatant violations in the first hundred days of the rule of the first elected president in the history of the modern Egypt.
The reports and blasphemy cases were increased.
In the second hundred days of his term and before it ends, the president achieved a new record in harassing the writers, journalists, newspapers, and satellite channels by the charges deemed to be stigma in any democratic rule.
[Click here to download the full report.]