Human Wrongs Watch
New York – The climate for free expression in Egypt “has worsened since Hosni Mubarak was ousted a year ago,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports. “Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) should act to end assaults on journalists by security forces. It should cease prosecutions based on laws violating media freedoms, and the country’s newly elected parliament should promptly repeal those laws.”
**Credit:Carlos Latuff – Source | Public Domain
In one recent example, a Cairo misdemeanor court on December 26, 2011, sentenced a democracy activist, Gaber Elsayed Gaber, to a year in prison for handing out leaflets at a public rally in Cairo, notes HRW in its report* on 11 Feb.
“Security forces have engaged in brutal beatings and used excessive force against demonstrators in Cairo and tried to stop journalists from reporting on them. Actions like these were hallmarks of Mubarak’s 30-year rule, but they also have been used repeatedly in the year since the SCAF assumed control on February 11, 2011,” it said.
