Egypt's journalists' union heaps pressure on interior minister

Egypt’s union of journalists said on Wednesday that it would refuse to print the name or image of the country’s interior minister until he resigns in a growing row over press freedom.

Members of the country’s oldest labour union voted to renew their call for the resignation of Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, after they said security forces raided the union’s Cairo headquarters for the first time in its history on Sunday.

The union called on all Egyptian newspapers to print their front pages entirely in black on Sunday in protest at what its head has called an “unconstitutional and illegal raid”.

In a 15-point statement issued on Wednesday afternoon following the meeting, the union also said it would gather its members next Tuesday to discuss launching a general strike.

The union’s members also called on Egyptian journalists to continue writing about the incident on Sunday, in violation of a publishing ban imposed by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday.

Wednesday saw angry scenes outside the central Cairo headquarters of the journalists’ syndicate.

Riot police cordoned off the building as members attempted to attend the general assembly, the Associated Press reported, with restrictions on access for local residents, foreign journalists and union members.

Pictures purportedly from the scene showed hundreds of people gathered on the steps of the building, which was bedecked with a huge black mourning ribbon.

The Interior Ministry says that eight officers entered the union building peacefully on Sunday - at the request of the prosecutor general - to arrest two journalists suspected of “incitement to protest”.

The journalists’ union, however, says that dozens of officers stormed the building by force, injuring a security guard.

Amid a growing crisis, Egyptian authorities have sought to regulate coverage of the incident.

In an internal circular mistakenly sent out by police to the press on Tuesday, police chiefs disclosed their “media management” strategy regarding the crisis.

"We cannot turn back, as that would mean a mistake has been made," it said, and called for "the use of security experts and retired police generals to expound the ministry's view" in the media.

"We must work to obtain the support of public opinion... in conveying the idea that the union wants to be above the law, and that its members do not want to be accountable."

An Interior Ministry source told state-run newspaper al-Ahram on Tuesday that the email had been sent out to the press due to a “technical error”.