Egypt

The Internet has grown faster in Egypt than in most Middle Eastern countries. Introduced in 1993, it has been available to the public since 1995 and since then has steadily grown more popular. The communications and information technology ministry ended the monopoly the state had exercised through Telecom Egypt and opened up the sector in early 2002 with a scheme allowing ISPs to assign special phone numbers to users with a computer and modem. The customers were not obliged to commit themselves to one ISP. The aim was to boost the number of Internet users and get Egyptians used to new technology. The country's traditional media is closely watched, but until recently no specific laws applied to the Internet. But in September 2002, the interior ministry set up a department to investigate computer and Internet crime and its director, Ahmed Essmat, told Al Ahram that his staff monitored the Internet daily. At the end of 2001 and early 2002, Internet users were warned off taboo issues (such as relations between Copts and Muslims, publicising terrorist ideas, human rights violations, criticising the president, his family and the army and promoting modern versions of Islam) and told that too much outspokenness was unwelcome. Moreover, when 52 homosexuals were tried by the state security court at the end of 2001, the gay community's websites were targeted by police. One even put a notice on its homepage saying: "Guess who's watching us? The state security police!" Traps were set up by the police. Two men made rendezvous with visitors through gay sites who turned out to be policemen, who arrested them. In mid-December 2002, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPPR) expressed concern about a new communications bill, noting that its article 65 was very vague in allowing the army, police and state security officials to access any communications network "for reasons of internal security." These objections resulted in amendments to the bill, which was adopted at the end of the month. Article 65 now says citizens have a right to privacy and says security agencies can only intercept private communications "in accordance with the law." They must obtain a court order to do so which is limited to 30 days and is only to be granted in connection with serious crimes or offences punishable by more than three months in prison. Tried for putting a 30-year-old poem online Shohdy Surur, webmaster of the English-language Al Ahram Weekly, was sentenced to a year in prison on 30 June 2002 for posting on another website a sexually-explicit, socially critical poem written by his late father 30 years ago. Article 178 of the penal code forbids possession of material for sale or distribution "with intent to corrupt public morals." Surur had posted on wadada.net, which is partly devoted to the work of his poet and actor father Naguib, a poem called Kuss Ummiyat, which contained passages said to be "an affront to public morals." The poem was written by the elder Surur in earthy and sexually-explicit language, as a criticism of Egyptian society and culture after the country's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War with Israel. He several times likened Egypt to a prostitute. Since no law refers to the Internet, the state brought charges under the law on public morals. The poem had been on the US-based wadada.net for the previous three years. Its author, who died in 1978, was never prosecuted for writing it. Shohdy Surur was arrested on 22 November 2001 at his home, which was searched and his computer seized. Police interrogated him for three days. The prison sentence on Surur, who has dual Russian and Egyptian nationality and lives in Russia, was confirmed by an appeals court on 14 October 2002. A 19-year-old student, Andy Ibrahim Shukri, was arrested, tried and sentenced in April 2002 to a month in jail for "putting old false information" after he had sent e-mail messages about a serial killer on the loose in Cairo. LINKS: - The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights