Egypt: Satellite Company Punished for Protest Footage

The state-run Radio and Television Union brought a complaint against the Cairo News Company (CNC) on April 8, 2008, the day after Al Jazeera broadcast coverage of large anti-government street protests in the Nile Delta. CNC provides satellite transmission services and equipment to television networks operating in Egypt, including Al Jazeera, BBC, and CNN. On April 17, 35 plainclothes police officers raided CNCs Cairo offices, confiscating its five sets of satellite transmission equipment and thereby shutting it down. Nader Gohar, CNCs owner, has been charged with importing and owning television equipment and transmitting television broadcasts without permission. He is due to stand trial on May 26 and if convicted would face fines and at least one year in prison.  
 
Egypts closure of CNC and its prosecution of Nader Gohar are just the latest episodes in the governments campaign to stifle freedom of the press, said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. The government has already attacked several satellite news channels, apparently because it doesnt like the news they transmit.  
 
Al Jazeeras April 7 coverage of the Mahalla al-Kobra protests included footage of protesters tearing down and defacing a large poster of President Hosni Mubarak. The next day, the head of the board of the Radio and Television Union, which oversees the regulation of public and private broadcasts and transmissions, filed a complaint with Egypts prosecutor general, alleging that Gohars company had been operating without required permits.  

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