Ahead of polls,media in Egypt feels the backlash

Authorities want calm and obedience,to achieve a quiet transition of power.

Withlively independent newspapers and rollicking TV political talk shows,Egypts journalists in recent years have pushed the boundaries so much so that they grew confident that growing press freedoms were irreversible.

Now the backlash has come,with a media crackdown in this top US ally that included the ousting of a prominent,muckraking editor. And journalists have discovered that the foundation of their greater freedoms the millionaire businessmen who opened up a generation of private media,full of criticism of authority are just as vulnerable to government pressure as their predecessors.

The removal of Ibrahim Eissa as editor of the Al-Dustour newspaper and the silencing of several TV programmes comes at a particularly sensitive time for the normally sclerotic Egyptian politics. Bruising parliamentary elections are just a month away,and the country is gripped by uncertainty over who will succeed 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak.

Authorities want calm and obedience to pave the way for Parliament and presidential elections and achieve a quiet transition of power, columnist Salama Ahmed Salama wrote. They want the loud,blaring voices to stop upsetting the seats of power.

For 50 years,the media in Egypt was monopolised by the government. Staid state newspapers and TV trotted out the daily activities of the President and fed a stream of state propaganda. But in the early part of the decade,businessmen were allowed to start founding their own newspapers and satellite TV stations. The new media outlets brought a fresh approach,tackling controversial issues held officials to task.

Businessmen are not free politically and economically,so how do we expect them to protect freedom of the press, Eissa said.

Talk shows have also felt the pressure. Orbit TVs 12-year-old Cairo Today went off air last week,followed soon after by the entire network itself.

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Ten other TV networks,most with religious programming,were shut off the air and 20 others received warnings of closure. Officials accused them of spreading Islamic extremism.

If I get a phone call telling me to shut Dream TV down,I will do so. Am I going to fight the state? I cant, real estate tycoon Ahmed Bahgat told the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Recess is over,even if you havent heard the bell ring, wrote Bilal Fadel,a columnist in Al-Masry Al-Youm after Orbit TV was shut down.MAGGIE MICHAEL