A state of controversy prevailed within the journalistic community in Egypt in parallel with the mid-term elections of the Journalists Syndicate, scheduled to be held today, Friday 2 May, following talk of a proposal to amend the syndicate’s law. This controversy came in the wake of a request submitted by a member of the general assembly, counted among the campaign of candidate Abdel Mohsen Salama, who is backed by the state and is the most prominent rival of the current head of the syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, who is counted among the independence current.
The proposal includes increasing the number of members of the syndicate’s council from 12 to 16, with four members appointed instead of elected, in violation of the provisions of the existing Journalists Syndicate law. A number of general assembly members considered that this move represents an attempt to pass an amendment to the syndicate’s law shortly before the elections, which raised widespread fears among journalists, many of whom expressed their categorical rejection of any measures that touch the law or threaten the gains established by the current legal framework.
The law of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate was issued more than five decades ago, at a time when print journalism was the prevailing form of media and digital journalism did not exist. This has led to the current law not recognising journalists working on electronic platforms and in digital media, which has raised the need to update legislation to keep pace with the new reality of the profession.
The syndicate’s law: between amending it and keeping it
The candidate for the post of head of the syndicate, Abdel Mohsen Salama, has adopted the proposal to amend the Journalists Syndicate law during his electoral tours since he was head of the Journalists Syndicate in the period between 2017 and 2019. The journalist and writer Abdel Mohsen Salama, candidate for the post of head of the Journalists Syndicate, had called for a conference bringing together the leaders of private newspapers and news websites with the Supreme Council for Media Regulation should he win the mid-term elections of the Journalists Syndicate, in cooperation with the “Supreme Council for Media Regulation”. This was rejected by members of the general assembly, who considered it unacceptable interference in syndicate affairs.
During his tenure as head of the Journalists Syndicate between 2017 and 2019, the journalist and writer Abdel Mohsen Salama raised the issue of amending the Journalists Syndicate law; however, this proposal was met with rejection from members of the general assembly, especially as it coincided with the passing of the Press and Media Regulation Law, which faced objection from members of the general assembly and from four members of the syndicate’s council at the time, namely Mahmoud Kamel, Mohamed Saad Abdel Hafiz, Gamal Abdel Rahim and Amr Badr, who considered it a “suspicious” law that does not express journalists so much as it serves certain bodies seeking to control the press, whether state-owned or private, and to silence its voice completely. They also saw it as a clear threat to the state-owned press institutions and those working in them, which reinforced the state of rejection within journalistic circles.
For his part, the head of the Journalists Syndicate, Khaled El-Balshy, the most prominent rival of candidate Abdel Mohsen Salama, announced his rejection of amending the Journalists Syndicate law, during the conference held by his campaign to announce his electoral programme on Saturday 26 April. In his speech, El-Balshy stressed that there are currently fears about putting forward the idea of amending the syndicate’s law, out of fear of losing gains, especially in light of legislation issued by the House of Representatives that did not come as required, such as the medical liability law.
Commenting on this, Mahmoud Kamel, a member of the Journalists Syndicate council and head of its freedoms and culture committees, says that since 2018, attempts have been put forward to amend the Journalists Syndicate law, but they were met with clear rejection from four members of the syndicate’s council. Today, these attempts are returning once again with the same approach. He points out that these amendments would result in weakening the role of the syndicate and diminishing the gains that the legislator established when the law was issued.
In his exclusive interview with Zawia3, Kamel believes that the existence of calls aimed at bringing the Supreme Council for Media into the syndicate’s affairs brings to mind the experience of Law 180 of 2018 on the regulation of the press and media, whose articles came to undermine the press and our ability to do journalistic work. He considers that any interference by bodies or parties from outside the general assembly in the syndicate’s affairs is a flagrant violation of its independence, and threatens a setback that would take us back to the era of shrouding the Journalists Syndicate.
Kamel explains : “There are statements being repeated that lack accuracy, concerning the articles relating to the Socialist Union in the Journalists Syndicate law, and these are claims that reflect a clear ignorance of the nature of the law, since the settled legal principle holds that the articles of laws are abrogated with the passage of time, an approach applied in many Egyptian laws. This means that some legal texts automatically become inapplicable because of changes in legal and legislative circumstances, even if they have not been explicitly repealed.”
Kamel adds that what is happening is not a defence of a just cause, as is being promoted, but rather a hidden attempt aimed at undermining the syndicate and striking at its independence. And I affirm that the real protector of the syndicate, its law and its independence is the general assembly, which remains the holder of the final word, ahead of the head of the syndicate and the council members.
For his part, and under the title “The Foundling Law”, the former head of the Journalists Syndicate Yehia Qallash announced his rejection of any amendments affecting the Journalists Syndicate law, via his Facebook page, where he said: “It came to us at the door of the syndicate, and we found a draft law containing scandalous amendments; we asked about the identity of its author, but could not trace him, so we knew it was a foundling draft of unknown parentage.”
He added in his post: “More than 30 years ago, a suspicious attempt was made to change the syndicate’s law, behind which stood Safwat El-Sherif in coordination with some council members, and the draft was leaked; it was published by our late colleague Magdy Mehanna, a member of the syndicate’s council at the time, and it was the main headline of the newspaper “Al-Wafd”. He had met us at the syndicate before that and told me: you must see “Al-Wafd” tomorrow and call me. He continued: we all flocked to the syndicate without being summoned by anyone, because the details of the draft were a crime complete in all its elements; it targeted the syndicate’s rolls, opening loopholes to flood the membership rolls with media professionals, extending the term of the head of the syndicate and the council to four years, abolishing the mid-term renewal, allowing those without a higher qualification to register, and other things.
Qallash added: “We found former head of the syndicate Kamel Zoheiry had got there before us, and we gathered around him, and among hundreds of journalists he coined the expression with which I began; the description “the foundling law” was enough to kill the idea, and everyone disowned it, and the head of the syndicate, Ibrahim Nafie, announced his rejection of the draft and that the council had no knowledge of it”. He asked: “Now, after more than three decades, have we found ourselves facing a foundling amendment that opens the door, not merely to attempts that have never stopped, the latest of which was in 2018, when an attempt was made behind the backs of the majority of council members and was exposed, and so it died?!.”
He continued: now, does someone who claims to belong to the profession dare to take liberties with us, and do we accept that he throws in our faces a proposal for amendment that includes appointment to council membership, among other catastrophic amendments that God alone knows?!!…. This is a foundling amendment without parentage, and if anyone has carried its banner, he must be held to account as he deserves, and he should not be granted the honour of being one of the members of our general assembly.
The Journalists Syndicate law: the necessity of timing and procedures
Talk of amending the Journalists Syndicate law began on 25 March, following a meeting of a number of heads of news websites at the headquarters of the Journalists Syndicate, to discuss a number of issues related to the problems and crises of the profession, foremost among them the demand to grant journalists working on news websites membership of the syndicate within the roll of practising members.
No fewer than 12 editors-in-chief of online news sites took part in the meeting, and this meeting stirred wide controversy within the journalistic community, especially as it came amid a charged atmosphere preceding the mid-term elections, which had been scheduled to be held last March and were postponed until the quorum of the general assembly was complete.
Mahmoud Kamel, a member of the Journalists Syndicate council, issued a warning statement in which he called on general assembly members to sign it, warning against any attempts “to tamper with the law” at this sensitive time, and considering that this constitutes a “grave danger” to the historic syndicate gains and opens the door to attempts “to pounce on them under glittering slogans”. In the statement, which was signed by more than 300 male and female journalists, Kamel called for rejecting any attempts to amend the syndicate’s law at this time, or under the pressure of electoral campaigns, and for rejecting any call for the intervention of the Supreme Council for Media or any other body in syndicate affairs, in order to preserve the syndicate’s independence. In addition, he called for the general assembly to remain the sole umbrella for discussing any amendments, at a later time, away from electoral conflicts.
For her part, the journalist and writer Shaimaa Galal, editor-in-chief of the El Rais News website and one of those present at the meeting of news websites calling for the amendment of the Journalists Syndicate law, says: “As a group of editors-in-chief of news websites, we began discussing the crisis of male and female journalists who are not syndicate members and of those working on news websites before the convening of the Sixth General Conference of the Journalists Syndicate.”
She adds, in her exclusive interview with Zawia3, that the proposal to amend the syndicate’s law was put forward because of the absence of a syndicate and legal umbrella protecting these journalists during their field work, which exposes them to the risk of being accused of impersonation under the law. She explained that the meeting has nothing to do with the elections and that its aim is not to stir confusion shortly before the convening of the general assembly.
In the same context, the journalist and writer Mona Ezzat, a member of the general assembly and a researcher in economic and social affairs, believes that the Journalists Syndicate law requires opening a broad discussion similar to the discussions that preceded the Sixth General Conference of the Journalists Syndicate, since amending the law is not a simple matter, but requires an in-depth and organised dialogue among the members of the general assembly.
The journalist continued, in her conversation with Zawia3: the articles of the law should be turned into main themes to be discussed in open sessions of the general assembly, to ensure that members take part in expressing their opinions. A committee would then be formed to draft the proposals agreed upon by the general assembly, whether regarding the articles that will be retained or those that will be subject to amendment, with the nature of the proposed amendments specified. Once the drafting is complete, the final draft is presented again to the general assembly for approval, before being submitted to parliament for adoption as legislation. However, parliament should take the syndicate’s opinion on this matter into account, given that the law directly concerns the general assembly, and this is how things ought to be.
As for the present time, Ezzat believes that the syndicate is on the threshold of the mid-term elections, which makes the timing unsuitable for opening this file, particularly given the presence of other open issues that emerged from the recommendations of the syndicate’s Sixth General Conference. It is logical to focus on implementing these recommendations and working on them before opening new files. Perhaps implementing the recommendations of the Sixth Conference could be a preparatory step towards discussing the necessary amendments to the law at a later time, with a clear vision and the approval of the general assembly.
On a broader level, the general assembly member and researcher in economic and social affairs believes that the laws regulating the work of syndicates should be the responsibility of the general assembly alone, without any interference from the authorities, including parliament. Any interference is considered a violation of the independence of syndicate work.
She added: in my estimation, the existence of a unified law for all professional and labour unions, containing the basic principles relating to the right to organise, would be more consistent with international labour standards. This law should not interfere in the details specific to each syndicate; rather, each syndicate should be left to set its own internal regulations, so that they are the main reference for organising its affairs. She pointed out that these measures are in line with international labour standards, particularly Convention No. 98 on the right to organise and collective bargaining, and Convention No. 87 on the right to organise and trade union freedoms, both issued by the International Labour Organization to regulate trade union work in a way that guarantees its independence and freedom.
Article 3 of Convention No. 87 on the right to organise and trade union freedoms states: “Workers’ and employers’ organisations shall have the right to draw up their constitutions and rules, to elect their representatives in full freedom, to organise their administration and activities and to formulate their programmes. The public authorities shall refrain from any interference which would restrict these rights or impede their lawful exercise”.
