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Al-Ahram Egyptian Newspaper Fires Its Great Writers

As a result of the retreat in the ceiling of freedoms in Egypt, especially the freedom of the press, the government’s Al-Ahram Newspaper continues the policies of quelling against its great writers. This motivated the great Egyptian writer Fahmi Huwaidi to stop writing for Al-Ahram Newspaper, as well as the great cartoon writer Ahmad Ragab who declared stopping writing for Akhbar Al-Yum Newspap

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As a result of the retreat in the ceiling of freedoms in Egypt, especially the freedom of the press, the government’s Al-Ahram Newspaper continues the policies of quelling against its great writers. This motivated the great Egyptian writer Fahmi Huwaidi to stop writing for Al-Ahram Newspaper, as well as the great cartoon writer Ahmad Ragab who declared stopping writing for Akhbar Al-Yum Newspaper as he protested against omitting words from his weekly article.

The writer Fahmi Huwaidi attributed the reason behind omitting phrases from his weekly article for Al-Ahram Newspaper to the crisis of freedoms that the Egyptian press faces, especially the freedom of the writer to express his opinions.
Huwaidi assured that this is not a new policy practiced against him, yet a continuous one. He pointed that no one informs him of omission or the reason that requires omission, until he became fed up.

About his reaction towards this whether stopping writing or not if not given the right justification, he said, "Every session has a concession; I will send the article of this week that deals with the report of the human rights, the trials to substitute the Emergency Law by the Terrorism Law and many other issues to seven great Arab countries. However, I will not send it to Al-Ahram Newspaper."

Huwaidi excluded that this was due to his Islamic views in writing, and asserted that he was promised before that no omission would be applied to his articles unless upon his permission. He denied any relation with that to his Islamic views; on the contrary, he said, “If I wrote a Friday Sermon, it would be better for them.” He rebuked severely the new journalistic leaders and indicated that they have no professional legitimacy that should stem from the talent. Rather, their legitimacy stems from the satisfaction of the regime with them, as they fear the anger of the security and the Committee of Policies.

Huwaidi pointed out that there is a process of weakening and killing against the governmental newspapers after the new amendments. He said, "I am an old man, working for Al-Ahram Newspaper since 48 years. I believe that there should be a relation with the authorities; but not to work as a servant for them. The relation should be based on the dialogue that requires parity not subordination.”
"Many journalistic leaders were appointed not on the basis of profession, but on the basis of loyalty. The security is satisfied with them and regards them as ’good people’. Moreover, these new leaders want to prove their loyalty to the authorities and not to the readers. Thus, they have no objection to fire Ahmad Ragab; actually, the one who did so has no legitimacy,” he added.

About the radical solution for this situation, Huwaidi stated, "This is related to the issue of the freedom of the press and it belongs to the whole country. The issue of the freedoms is not the crisis of an article, as the crisis of the freedoms faces us throughout syndications, parties and the daily life in general.