BBC Monitoring

Text of unattributed report headlined "Arab Network for Human Rights says imprisonment of journalists asserts the decline of the freedom of the press and failure of President Mubarak to honour his promise", published by Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood website Amlalommah on 1 November

The Arab Network for the Freedom of the Press has condemned the sentences issued by the Asyut Court on 30 October imprisoning the president of the Wafd Party, Mahmud Abazah, the editor-in-chief of the Wafd newspaper, Anwar al-Huwwari, and the Asyut correspondent of the newspaper Yunus Darwish.

In a press statement issued on 30 October 2007, the Arab Network for the Freedom of the press described the sentences as part of the trend that is followed against the journalists and leaders of the Wafd Party. It pointed out that such sentences confirmed the decline of the freedom of the press in Egypt and the government intention to contain the activists of the opposition parties and handle them with an iron fist.

The executive director of the Arab Network for Human Rights, Jamal Id, has declared that President Husni Mubarak has not fulfilled the promise he made three years ago to revoke the imprisonment of journalists on issues of publication, but left the jour! nalists vulnerable to imprisonment on these issues.

Source: Amlalommah website, Alexandria, in Arabic 1 Nov 07