By IPS Correspondents
CAIRO, Apr 8 2008 (IPS)

Launched in 1995, Al-Dustour was closed by the government three years later after publishing articles critical of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Following a judicial decree, the newspaper began printing again in 2005.

Ibrahim Eissa Credit:

Eissa speaks to Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani of IPS about his hard-hitting newspaper, the contentious issue of presidential “inheritance”, the future of political reform in Egypt, and the latest developments in his own legal contests with the regime.

IPS: Al-Dustour has made a name for itself by challenging the Mubarak regime and its policies. But does the newspaper have a particular political orientation?

IE: Al-Dustour is an opposition newspaper, but has no party affiliations. Politically, the paper adopts a liberal point of view, with a focus on the welfare of the population’s poorest segments.

Al-Dustour consistently challenges the notion that the president is above criticism, while also publishing articles about Egypt’s future after President Mubarak. Both of these were considered major “red lines” in the Egyptian press before Al-Dustour first started writing about them when it first opened in 1995. Before this, broaching these topics had been impossible.

But Al-Dustour also tries to challenge red lines found in Egyptian society. For example, when the local press attacked Denmark in response to insulting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad two years ago, Al-Dustour was one of the few papers to suggest that the media was exaggerating the issue.

At the time, we stated – somewhat controversially – that there were much more pressing issues facing the Arab world such as the ongoing occupation of Arab land in Palestine and Iraq and the general lack of democracy in the Middle East.

We’re sometimes accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood (the Islamist opposition group) because we give the group a voice in our reporting. But we write about the Brotherhood because it represents the country’s largest opposition force, which holds roughly one-fifth of the seats in parliament.

The group is also facing arrest campaigns and military trials, so how can we not write about it? If you’re not covering human rights issue like this, you cannot claim to be a journalist.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Al-Dustour is a Brotherhood newspaper: the day after we run an editorial by a Brotherhood official, we’ll run an opinion piece by a socialist leader.

IPS: Political commentators have long said that President Mubarak’s son, Gamal, is being groomed to succeed his father as president. What role has Al-Dustour played in bringing this contentious subject into the mainstream of public debate?

IE: I was the first one in the Egyptian press to write about the concept of “tawreeth”, or the “inheritance” of the presidency. Shortly after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – son of Hafez al-Assad – assumed power in 2001, I wrote two articles comparing Egypt and Syria. In one of them, I personally thanked President Mubarak for stating publicly that “Egypt isn’t Syria,” and that Egypt “rejects the idea of presidential inheritance.”

These were the first two articles on the inheritance issue to be written in the local press. Since then, a number of other newspapers have also begun challenging the idea of presidential inheritance, which had represented a major “red line” before we first began raising the issue.

IPS: Does Al-Dustour take similarly controversial positions on foreign-policy issues?

IE: Yes, Al-Dustour has also challenged Cairo’s foreign policy in many cases. For example, in the 2006 summer war between Israel and (Lebanese resistance faction) Hezbollah, most of the Egyptian press either adopted the Israeli position – i.e., that “Hezbollah started the war” – or were silent on the issue. Al-Dustour, by contrast, defended Hezbollah’s stance and published numerous statements by (Hezbollah leader Hasan) Nasrallah.

More recently, most Egyptian newspapers stood against the “overthrow” of Gaza last year by (Palestinian resistance faction) Hamas. Al-Dustour, however, also told the story from the perspective of Hamas, which claimed at the time that its Gaza takeover had been carried out in order to pre-empt a U.S. plan aimed at extirpating the group’s leadership.

The point is that we give voice to all sides, even on matters of foreign policy. For this reason, we have been accused of being supported by Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, while others claim we’re funded by the Americans! Critics want to relegate Al-Dustour to a specific political camp, only they can’t – because we present all sides of an argument.

IPS: What is your take on the current pace of political reform in Egypt?

IE: At the end of 2004, Egypt enjoyed a brief political spring, which lasted until the beginning of last year. This period witnessed several significant developments in the region, including (former U.S. Secretary of State) Colin Powell’s democratisation initiative for the Middle East, U.S. pressure on the Mubarak regime for political reform and the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq.

These factors combined to force dictatorial Arab regimes to begin showing a degree of flexibility vis-à-vis the political opposition. As a result, we saw the opposition Al-Ghad party receive a licence from the government and the (pro-democracy) Kefaya movement begin organising street protests. And in 2005, the four-year-old judicial decree allowing Al-Dustour to re-launch was finally implemented. All of this came as a result of pressure exerted on the regime by Washington and other western capitals and international human rights groups. However, after the U.S. administration was dismayed by the Muslim Brotherhood’s surprise electoral performance in the 2005 parliamentary elections, much of this pressure for political reform evaporated.

Despite this retrogression, however, Al-Dustour has continued to publish articles critical of the regime and its policies. And in response, the government has ratcheted up pressure on us by threatening stiff penalties and prison sentences.

IPS: In some cases you have received jail sentences for Al-Dustour’s daring reporting, most recently on Mar. 26. What were these sentences for?

IE: Within the last decade, I have received a total of six jail sentences, mostly on charges of criticising government ministers. After lodging appeals, however, all of these were reduced to stiff financial penalties.

More recently, however, I have also faced charges of “defaming” the President and for “publishing erroneous news” about the President’s health, both of which carry possible jail penalties. Although the first of these was reduced to a hefty monetary fine, the second one resulted in a six-month jail sentence, which I am also planning to file an appeal against.

Also, last year, I – along with four other independent editors-in-chief – was sentenced to one year in prison for publishing “libellous material” about leading members of the regime.

I would like to point out, though, that these sentences are political in nature and not judicial. They ultimately serve to confirm the sovereignty of the government and president over the people, despite the fact that the constitution expressly grants sovereignty to the people.

I’m afraid of going to prison just like anyone else. But even though I know there are state decisions to put me in jail, this won’t stop me from publishing views critical of the government. As for support, I’m not banking on Egypt’s official Journalists Syndicate, but rather on our readers, international human rights organisations and the Egyptian street.

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