Daily News Egypt
Rights group demands justice for reporters killed in Egypt
ANHRI holds police responsible for the death of five journalists
Marwa Al-A’sar
Eleven journalists were killed while working in Egypt
between 28 January 2011 and 28 March 2014, the Arabic Network for Human
Rights Information (ANHRI) said on Saturday.
“Most of those responsible for killing those journalists
haven’t been brought to justice yet,” the ANHRI statement said,
announcing the release of a booklet entitled “The Journalism Martyrs in
Egypt and Escaping Justice.”
The killed journalists belonged to state-owned media, as well as local and international independent media outlets.
The ANHRI holds the police responsible for the death of
five journalists, the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters for
murdering three, the armed forces for causing the death of two others,
while the person or entity behind the killing of one reporter remains
unknown.
“The 55-page booklet includes the names of the journalists
and their pictures, to highlight a phenomenon new to Egypt, the killing
of journalists,” the statement said.
The statement added that such incidents were accompanied by
a lack of justice that first emerged during the reign of ousted
president Hosni Mubarak.
“Yet the governments that came to power consecutively
became involved to a great extent in the same practices… while justice
remained absent and the sovereignty of law became a pressing demand
wasted by the absence of a political will to impose it,” the statement
added.
The ANHRI called for finding specific mechanisms that
hinder such occurrences, putting forward several recommendations for a
number of entities.
The rights group called on the authorities to provide
reporters with the necessary protective measures inside risky areas and
to offer the judiciary the required information and evidence to help
identify the perpetrators.
The ANHRI further urged the public prosecutor to open an investigation into the death of each individual case.
*Photo by Mahmoud Khaled, courtesy of AFP
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