The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the World Editors Forum have written to the Egyptian president to express concern over recent attacks on independent media, including the dismissal of Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief and founder of the private daily Al-Dustour.

The full text of the letter is below:

His Excellency President Hosni Mubarak

President of Egypt

Cairo, Egypt

12 October 2010

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and News

Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000

publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than

120 countries, to express our serious concern at recent attacks on

independent media, including the dismissal of Ibrahim Eissa, ahead of the

forthcoming parliamentary and 2011 presidential elections.

According to reports, Mr Eissa, editor-in-chief and founder of the private

daily Al-Dustour, was dismissed on 5 October within 24 hours of the

transfer of Al-Dustour to new owners, including media mogul and opposition

Al-Wafd party leader al-Sayyid al-Badawi. The new owners had given

assurances before the sale that they would not interfere in the

newspaper's editorial line. After his dismissal, Mr Eissa reportedly said

that the paper's new owners had asked him not to publish an article

written by Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the International

Atomic Energy Agency and leader of a political reform movement. Within

hours of his refusal to remove Mr ElBaradei's article, Mr Eissa was

relieved of his duties. Mr Al-Badawi claims that Mr Eissa's dismissal was

related to a labour dispute.

Mr Eissa is the laureate of the 2008 Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize

from WAN-IFRA that honours an editor or publisher in the Arab region. Over

Mr Eissa's career, 65 cases have been filed against him for allegedly

violating Egypt's press law. In 2006, he was sentenced to one year in

prison - later reduced to a fine - for publishing a story about the misuse

of public funds. In 2008, he was sentenced to two months in prison for

"publishing false information and rumours" about Your Excellency's health,

an offence for which he later received a presidential pardon.

We are also concerned that Mr Eissa's dismissal appears be part of a

larger pattern of intimidation of critical journalists ahead of the

elections. Alaa al-Aswani and Hamdi Qandil, columnists at the private

daily Al-Shuruq, stopped writing their columns last month after the

newspaper's management warned them about external pressure to tone down

their content. Television programme Al-Qahira Al-Yawm, presented by

journalist Amr Adeeb, was also suspended on 25 September. Mr Adeeb

claimed that the programme was halted

for "political reasons".

We bring to your attention the Declaration of Table Mountain, endorsed at

the 60th World Newspaper Congress and 14th Editors Forum in Cape Town in

June 2007. The Declaration of Table Mountain, among other things, calls on

African states to promote the highest standards of press freedom in

furtherance of the principles proclaimed in Article 19 of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and other protocols and to provide

constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press.

We respectfully call on you to take all necessary steps to halt the

campaign of intimidation and censorship of independent media so that the

press is able to report free from government pressure. We ask you to

ensure that in future your country fully respects international standards

of press freedom.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O'Reilly

President

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers

Xavier Vidal-Folch

President

World Editors Forum