Maat welcomes President Mubarak's decision to pardon Ibrahim Issa

And it demands the government and parliament to stop attacks on freedom of expression

Yesterday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak surprised the press circles with a republican decision to pardon Ibrahim Issa, the editor-in-chief of the private newspaper Al-Dustour, to stop the state of tension among the media by preventing him from implementing a final ruling to imprison Essa for a period of two months, after his conviction in the case of publishing controversial news a year ago about the health of President Mubarak. After that, he was accused of causing the loss of the Egyptian Stock Exchange, withdrawing foreign investments estimated at $ 350 million, and stopping their flow to Egypt.

The Maat Center welcomed the republican decision, stressing its response to the pulse of the Egyptian street calling for freedom of expression and information circulation through the media. Ayman Aqil, director of the center, said, “The presidential decision temporarily stopped the press and human rights anger, and the government and the majority of the National Party in Parliament can benefit from it in conducting a real reconciliation. With the media and citizens alike, and they should not wait for journalists to be dragged into prisons after trials whose procedures are sometimes nullified, until they announce their democracy and the national newspapers under their control talk about the most brilliant eras of freedom.

The Center expresses its concern about the continued prosecution of loyalists of the National Party, a number of editors-in-chief of private newspapers, and accusations against them of insulting the symbols of government and the party, in what is known as the political issues of hisba, through which some seek to bring down the prestige of journalists and opinion professionals in front of the world.

Aqeel added, “We reiterated our demands at that time easily for the Minister of Health or the official spokesperson for the presidency or the Council of Ministers to leave, to deny what Ibrahim Issa had published as a kind of right to reply at the very least. The Transparency and Integrity Government also refrained from commenting on what was published by the constitution, and its leaders sought to pursue the editor-in-chief. "The newspaper is a judicial one, and we believe that the absence of accurate information on public opinion in this matter is a governmental responsibility. It is not to be imagined that a journalist will not strive to publish information and the government will respond by dragging him in the court yards as if we are before a government with an arm.

The Center calls on President Mubarak to take advantage of this national occasion - the October Victory Day - to issue a similar republican decision to release all political detainees and prisoners of conscience, and to implement his government’s real initiative to stop the repeated attacks on freedom of opinion and expression, which bad parliamentary legislation contributes to its killing and the Egyptian judiciary is used to beat it. The Center reminds His Excellency of his initial initiative after assuming power when 1536 people were released, the late President Anwar Sadat issued a decision to arrest them days before his death.

The Center also stresses the need for the president to issue his orders to the Ministry of the Interior to expedite the payment of compensation approved by the judiciary for dozens of detainees for their years of detention.