Cabinet to review bill tightening restrictions on army-related news

The State Council approved a Defense Ministry-authored bill on Thursday that would ban media outlets from publishing news pertaining to the Armed Forces without prior written consent from the head of the military or a relevant court.

The draft law has now been sent to the Cabinet for final approval.

The bill tightens already existing restrictions on army-related news, and increases the penalties for breaching the ban.

Any material pertaining to the Armed Forces, its equipment, configuration, operations or work plans would be banned from publication under the bill, according to a copy of the document published in the privately owned Al-Watan newspaper.

The draft also adds a new clause to the current law that adds a vague dimension to the list of banned news items, “generally, anything that touches on [the military’s] affairs, missions, means of executing its missions, information of its members, the manner in which they perform their work and other matters, which constitute secrets of defense.”

The Armed Forces are currently in the midst of a large operation in North Sinai which started over a year and a half ago, with the goal of destroying terrorist cells in the strife-ridden peninsula.

The ambiguous wording of the bill has led to speculations that it would even further decrease the already limited space for media coverage of the military’s activities.

The existing law regulating the publishing of news on the Armed Forces was first passed in 1956 under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and then amended in 1967. The current version requires a permit from the military intelligence to publish news about military affairs.

The new draft sets the penalty for breaching the publication ban to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of LE10,000 to LE50,000.

If the law is violated in times of war or a state of emergency, however, the defendants would serve their time in a maximum-security prison and the fine would be raised to between LE100,000 and LE200,000. The harsher sentence would also be enforced if the crime was committed by Armed Forces personnel.