the Middle East Times
No article was cut from this week's issue of the Middle East Times.
Here are some stories, however, which relate to freedom of expression but which were not actually censored.
Here is our archive of censored stories.
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The Middle East Times has never been given a license to publish in Egypt and Egyptian law gives the Ministry of Information the right arbitrarily to ban any newspaper printed outside Egypt from entering the country. The censor reviews all of our issues before allowing them to be distributed. In the past, we censored ourselves, but sometimes we pushed the limits and we lost about three to four issues every year. Needless to say, this was disastrous for our sales and advertising revenue. These days we have a new system -- we submit a proof of each issue to the censor in advance. If they don't like any article, or any paragraph, or any sentence, we take it out and leave a blank space in its place. We are not allowed, however, to mention in this space, the reason why it is there.
Reasons for censorship:
What did they censor?
Freedom of expression in Egypt:
In this section we are gathering stories related to restrictions on freedom of expression in Egypt.
We are generally not allowed to do the following things:
However, the censor is very arbitrary -- sometimes these things go through, sometimes they don't.
Here is a selection of stories which the Egyptian authorities have censored over the past few months:
THE MOST RECENTLY CENSORED ARTICLE APPEARS FIRST
More articles will be added as they are censored.
Don't mess with security, now.
Too sexy for the military?
Too near to the bone?
Keep checking this page!
It's definitely under threat. From bannings of books by Al-Azhar to beatings-up of journalists. From court cases against authors to assassinations of writers by militants. Draconian press legislation and plain old censorship seem mild in comparison.
An interview with the official who censors The Middle East Times
For readers who arrived here from outside The Middle East Times: