BBC Monitoring

Text of report in English by Egyptian news agency MENA

Cairo, 24 September: The Council of the Syndicate of Journalists called on the crisis committee it formed recently to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday [26 September] to tackle measures to be adopted after a court issued a new ruling against journalists on Monday.

In a press release, the council said that the committee will study means to deal with the situation after issuing verdicts against seven journalists in the past weeks.

A Cairo district court passed a two-year prison sentence Monday against the chief editor of Al-Wafd newspaper Anwar al-Hawari and two other members of his staff.

The al-Waraq Court of Misdemeanour said it found the three guilty of publishing false reports aiming at vilifying the Egyptian judiciary and legal system.

Hawari's co-defendants are his deputy and the head of the newspaper's parliamentary desk Mahmud Ghallab and Amir Salim, a reporter at the newspaper's political desk.

A bail of LE 5,000 was set f! or each. They were also fined LE 200 each.

Al-Wafd newspaper is the mouthpiece of the opposition al-Wafd Party.

Source: MENA news agency, Cairo, in English 1646 gmt 24 Sep 07