Egypt's military reverses decision on tourist visas but pulls al Jazeera station from air

Note: The WSJ reporter who filed the following report describes al Jazeera's coverage of the 'protests' that brought down the Mubarak regime as "trenchant." Trenchant, huh? I could write a twenty-page essay full of links to news reports to dispute that claim.

However, the reporter has gathered valuable information about the present state of affairs in Egypt so I'm going to let the claim stand uncontested, for now, with only the comment that while much could be said about al Jazeera's coverage of the protests and coverage of the same protests provided by every single national TV station in the United States -- CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, FNC -- I think it would be wrong, or at least very uninformed, to portray it aa trenchant.

September 12:

Egypt Curbs Media After Cairo Melee
By Matt Bradley
Wall Street Journal

CAIRO—Law-enforcement officials pulled an Egyptian affiliate of the Qatar-based satellite news channel Al Jazeera off the air on Sunday as Egypt's interim leadership struggled to deflect blame onto foreign media for a violent attack on the Israeli embassy.

Earlier on Sunday, the government capitulated to tourism officials to reverse a decision last week that would have prevented visitors to Egypt from purchasing visas at the airport—a move that could have further damaged the country's ailing tourism industry.

Both decisions point to the military-led transitional government's increasingly chaotic governance amid growing challenges to its authority by casting blame on foreigners and the media.

Activists and human-rights groups have complained that the interim leadership is resorting to the draconian methods of former President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in an uprising in February.

"The fear of the outside continues to dominate the discourse and the actions now for the military council," said Hossam Bahgat, a pro-democracy activist and the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. "This is typical of security agencies under Mubarak: They always seek to keep independent media outlets and human-rights organizations on fragile grounds so that they can always decide when to stop tolerating these independent voices."

The raid on Al Jazeera Live Egypt comes nearly one week after Egypt's cabinet announced that it had frozen permits for new satellite television news channels and would re-evaluate existing licenses.

Employees at Al Jazeera Live, which started broadcasting from Egypt shortly after the revolution against Mr. Mubarak, said they believed Egypt's Ministry of Interior was retaliating against Al Jazeera because it broadcast live images of protesters' attacking the Israeli embassy late Friday night.

A large protest dubbed "Correct the Path" turned ugly when thousands of activists demanding an end to military trials for civilians and a clear timetable for the democratic transition crossed the Nile River to the Israeli embassy. The confrontation led to the deaths of three demonstrators and prompted Egyptian officials to evacuate the ambassador, his family and dozens of staff in the middle of the night.

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.The demonstrators, who included deep ranks of Egyptian football hooligans, tore down a recently constructed wall built to protect the embassy and invaded the building.

Police detained one Al Jazeera employee for questioning and confiscated equipment, the interior ministry official said.

A spokesman for Egypt's Ministry of Interior said they had pulled Al Jazeera Live off the air because the channel was operating without a permit. They were also responding to "neighborhood complaints" of high levels of foot traffic and blocked cellphone signals in the building the channel occupied.

The broadcaster, also known as Al Jazeera Mubasher, which means live in Arabic, shares the same building as the Cairo bureau of the British Broadcasting Corporation, said Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, a secretary at Al Jazeera Live Egypt. He said Al Jazeera Live's repeated efforts to secure a broadcast permit were stymied by bureaucratic delays.

Al Jazeera Mubasher's shutdown comes as Egypt's ruling Supreme Council for the Armed Forces, or SCAF, seeks to counter criticism from within Egypt that it didn't adequately protect the Israeli embassy.

Throughout the course of the "Arab Spring" of successive pro-democracy uprisings, Arab leaders have repeatedly made a scapegoat out of the Doha-based broadcaster, accusing it of inciting the Arab public.

The channel has distinguished itself for its trenchant coverage both of Israel and Arab autocrats, offering extensive airtime to anti-Israel activists.

Egypt's Minister of Justice, Mohamed Al Guindi, told a television talk show audience on Saturday that the violence outside the Israeli embassy was the first part of a scheme to undermine Egypt's transitional government.

In a thinly veiled reference to Gulf Arab states, Mr. Al Guindi said "neighboring" governments hoped to quash Egypt's revolution for fear that it might motivate revolts in their own countries.

Throughout the summer, the SCAF has ramped up its rhetoric against perceived foreign saboteurs. The military says it believes such people are seeking to destabilize Egypt through proxies in the media and activist communities.

Meanwhile, the cabinet's decision to reverse the decision announced last week to stop issuing tourist visas upon arrival to individual visitors was welcomed by tourism officials. Some tourism and other government officials had been puzzled as to why the government would issue a decision that could further diminish a tourism industry already struggling after Egypt's revolution.

Many analysts speculated that the decision was taken out of concern that terrorists were able to enter the country on ordinary tourist visas.

"I don't care why. What I care for is the welfare of our tourists," Hisham Zazou, the deputy minister of tourism, said in an interview. "They evaluated the situation, they said no, and we will go back to normal."

State of emergency widened in Egypt: "The military is giving broad and excessive powers to a police force that continues to be abusive."

September 12:

Egypt military to widen state of emergency
By Samer al-Atrush
AFP
[Report posted 2:00 PM EDT]

CAIRO — One of Egypt's ruling generals said Monday the military will expand a state of emergency because of a "breach in public security" after protesters stormed Israel's embassy and clashed with police, state news agency MENA reported.

The ruling military council issued a decree to widen the scope of the emergency law -- restricted in 2010 by ousted president Hosni Mubarak to narcotics and terrorism cases -- to target labour strikes and the "spread of false rumours."

It will also target acts that "disrupt traffic," MENA reported. That could possibly outlaw many demonstrations like the regular protests held after an uprising overthrew Mubarak in February.

"Widening the scope of crimes liable under the emergency law along with terrorism and narcotics is the result of the security conditions the country is undergoing and the breach in public order," the agency quoted General Mamduh Shahin as saying.

The general, a member of Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, stressed the "necessity of confronting thuggery and all who threaten Egypt's security and harm its reputation abroad."

Those arrested under the law face emergency state security courts, which critics say are unfair and result in harsh sentences.

Protesters clashed with police overnight on Friday after demonstrators stormed a high-rise building housing the Israeli embassy and dumped thousands of documents from a balcony.

Three protesters were killed in the clashes, which left more than 1,000 people wounded. Israel's ambassador and many of his staff were evacuated home.

The incident proved an embarrassment to the country's rulers, with US President Barack Obama calling on Egypt to "honour its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli embassy."

Since the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak, Egypt's police force has largely collapsed and the military, unused to civilian policing, has struggled to deal with sporadic and at times deadly unrest.

But critics say widening the emergency law, continuously in place since Islamists assassinated Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat in 1981, is unnecessary and a revival of former practices.

The military had promised that parliamentary elections scheduled by the end of the year would not be conducted under a state of emergency.

"It's a human rights catastrophe," said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative For Personal Rights, a leading rights group.

"It's not only reneging on the promise to lift emergency law, but it revives one of the worst aspects of Mubarak rule and risks introducing the notorious system of administrative detention without charge and trial," he said.

Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based representative of the international rights watchdog Human Rights Watch, called the measure "unnecessary, overly broad and disproportionate."

"This is the classic Mubarak reaction to any perceived security risk," she said. "The military is giving broad and excessive powers to a police force that continues to be abusive and incompetent."

Essam al-Erian, vice president of the influential Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said "the general trend is in opposition" to the measure.

"There was a promise that elections would be held without the emergency law. What this means is that either the elections will take place under the emergency law or they will be delayed," he said.

The military has not suggested that it would delay the elections.

But the state-owned Al-Akbar newspaper reported on Monday that the electoral commission agreed in a meeting with military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to hold separate parliamentary and senate elections rather than simultaneously as planned previously.

Amr Mussa, a leading presidential candidate and former Arab League chief, suggested in an interview published on Monday that the military work on a "road map" with a civilian council on a transition to civilian government.

In the interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm, he added that attacking embassies and "Egyptian institutions" was "an attempt to spread chaos and assert lawlessness."