More than five decades after Law No. 76 of 1970 establishing Egypt’s Journalists Syndicate was issued, some of its provisions remain controversial because they no longer reflect the realities of journalism, its labour market or workers’ rights. Journalism increasingly takes place outside traditional institutions, and more journalists work in insecure jobs or without professional recognition. Yet Article 97 continues to exclude an entire generation of practitioners: receiving a retirement pension permanently removes them from the active register, preventing their return and excluding them from voting or standing in Syndicate elections.
Retired journalists interviewed by Zawia3 say the exclusion reaches beyond age or employment status into registration, allowances, pensions and contract extensions. An organisation intended to unite journalists instead divides them through criteria that no longer reflect their profession or needs. Calls for legislative reform and fair pensions continue, while the existing law remains an obstacle to meaningful representation.
Retired photojournalist Hisham El-Masry says journalists can often work throughout their lives. He points to the Syndicate’s internal regulations, which he says provide for retirement at 65. In practice, most institutions retire journalists at 60, leaving their future to chance: a renewed contract, a “zero contract”, or a complete end to employment.
A zero contract allows an institution to inform the Syndicate that a journalist still works there despite receiving no salary or only a token payment. The journalist can then remain on the active register and receive the full professional allowance instead of a Syndicate pension. Only a limited number of institutions offer this arrangement, El-Masry explains.
“The professional allowance should equal the pension, whether the journalist is working or not. A journalist who can no longer work should receive the full allowance in recognition of years of service,” El-Masry tells Zawia3.
He criticises linking pension entitlements to years of Syndicate membership: many journalists joined late and consequently do not qualify for a full pension. He contrasts the technology allowance, cited in this report at EGP 4,500, with a Syndicate pension of EGP 3,000. These are the amounts discussed in the original reporting, rather than a statement of present-day entitlements. After 60, journalists often face expensive treatment alongside continuing family commitments, while state pensions fail to keep pace with inflation.
“Even combining the Syndicate and state pensions is insufficient,” he says. The Syndicate subsidises examinations and laboratory tests, but health insurance does not cover imported medicines. National press institutions generally stop providing treatment after retirement, apart from some bodies that continue full or partial coverage.
El-Masry wants optional participation in the Solidarity Fund to continue until 65 rather than end at 60. Continuing contributions, he argues, benefits both members and the fund. He also calls for parity between allowances and pensions, describing the latest technology-allowance increase as reasonable but the pension increase as far below expectations. Journalists, he adds, did not benefit from the minimum wage while working.
Voting and participation in the general assembly should remain rights for all journalists, he argues, because board decisions affect members throughout their lives. Excluding someone who still uses Syndicate services or bears the consequences of its decisions makes little sense. He favours amending specific provisions rather than replacing the entire law, although government involvement in financing creates obstacles. Syndicate chairman Khaled El-Balshy has already sought a lifelong allowance paid as a pension, he says, without securing a government response.
Article 97 connects receipt of the retirement pension with ceasing journalistic work and permanent transfer from the active to the non-active register. It prevents a pension recipient from applying to rejoin the active register. Article 32 restricts the general assembly to active members who have paid their dues or been exempted. Under Article 33, that assembly approves the annual board report, final accounts and next year’s budget; elects the chairman and board; approves internal regulations and professional ethics rules; establishes pensions and assistance arrangements; and considers matters referred by the board.
Retired journalist Mohamed Shawki Salama describes Article 97 as professional “execution”. Contract extensions are optional, he says, and employers and journalists should agree a framework making extensions mandatory, comparable to arrangements he cites for university professors and judges.
“The law prevents candidacy, voting and a return to the active register even if the journalist finds suitable work after receiving a retirement pension,” Salama says. He interprets its practical effect as preventing appointment as editor-in-chief, which requires active membership, rather than imposing an absolute ban on every form of journalistic work. His interpretation differs from the broader wording of Article 97.
Salama wants a discussion involving the general assembly, pensioners and employers before reform proceeds. Unlike El-Masry, he believes the entire 1970 law is outdated and should be replaced. Although he considers the roughly EGP 3,000 pension comparatively favourable among professional syndicates, it remains inadequate. Legislation should strengthen revenues and set mechanisms for increasing allowances and pensions, he argues.
Article 94 sets conditions for a full pension at 60, treating death or complete professional incapacity as equivalent for the age requirement. It also requires active registration, payment of dues unless exempted, and 25 years of continuous or interrupted registration including the training period. A 2023 board decision increased the pension by EGP 500 to EGP 3,000, effective in that financial year.
Hundreds of retired journalists affected
Hamed Zehni, deputy head of the Syndicate’s Association of Veteran Journalists, says Article 97 deprives retirees of fundamental rights, particularly voting for the chairman and board. This contradicts the character of a body representing a profession of public debate, he argues: retired journalists can vote in presidential and national elections but not within their own Syndicate.
Zehni says the general assembly authorised the board in 2023 to propose amendments, yet no action followed. Excluding veterans restricts their freedoms and leaves them without influence. He also criticises zero contracts that allow some retirees to receive the technology allowance without actually practising, producing unequal treatment.
“Veterans form a substantial voting bloc of around 900 retired journalists. Board candidates make promises from time to time, but they are not fulfilled,” Zehni says.
The association has begun further legal steps, written to the president and prepared another letter, he says. Zehni considers Article 97 relatively straightforward to change because it concerns the Syndicate’s internal affairs. However, it is a statutory provision: a board may propose or campaign for reform, but changing its wording requires legislation, rather than an internal board decision alone.
He says pensions had not risen since the preceding July despite escalating living costs, and pledges continued pressure to amend the law and improve pensions after years of marginalisation.
The Supreme Constitutional Court previously considered case No. 44 of judicial year 36, brought by the head of the pensioners’ association against the first paragraph of Article 32 and Article 97. The challenge concerned work after retirement, combining the allowance with a pension, freedom of expression and the right to work. In April 2021, the court, chaired by Justice Saeed Marei, reportedly declared the proceedings ended. That procedural outcome should not be confused with a substantive ruling that struck down the contested provisions.
Veterans shut out of Syndicate decisions
Mahmoud El-Sheikh, the veterans’ association’s secretary-general, says Article 97 unfairly removes voting, candidacy and financial rights, leaving retirees unable to influence decisions directly affecting them. They can elect local councils, parliament and the president, but cannot choose their Syndicate’s chairman despite decades of experience.
He considers the restriction unconstitutional and says successive boards have resisted reform out of concern that referring the law to parliament could lead to broader changes. The law, enacted in 1970, is so outdated that it still refers to membership of the long-defunct Arab Socialist Union, he argues. The Arabic source gives 1972 in this passage; the law’s documented year is 1970.
El-Sheikh believes the Journalists Syndicate is the only Egyptian professional syndicate that excludes pensioners from voting. The veterans’ recent emergency assembly sought a narrowly worded amendment adding pensioners to the membership definition so that they could vote and participate fully.
Pensions are extremely low and repeated requests for increases have gone unanswered, he says. Restoring voting rights would change Syndicate politics because members with up to five decades of experience can identify candidates who genuinely defend professional interests.
In November 2025, the association announced escalation and an emergency general assembly over what it called the board’s deliberate disregard of pensioners’ demands, particularly pension increases. It described this as an insult to veterans’ history and sacrifices and promised stronger action if the disregard continued.
“Professional execution”
Ayman Abdel-Meguid, board member and chair of the pensions committee, says he has campaigned for reform since 2008, when he published an investigation entitled “The Journalists Syndicate Executes 600 Elders of the Profession”. Around 560 journalists were retired at that time, he says. By this report, his estimate was about 1,000 retirees plus approximately 900 dependants of deceased journalists: some 1,900 pension beneficiaries in all.
Article 97 represents professional execution, Abdel-Meguid says, because a pensioner cannot vote, stand for election or return to active membership even after securing a new journalistic job or leadership position. Other provisions also fail to reflect digital journalism, whose practitioners struggle to register under the existing framework.
As secretary-general in 2012–2013, he prepared proposals for the general assembly. Its approved decision No. 5 called on the board to pursue an amendment to Article 32, including dues-paying members of both the active and pension registers, ensuring equal financial and representative rights, and repealing Article 97.
A retired journalist can find new work or a leadership role and still be barred from returning to the active register, Abdel-Meguid says.
Equality between pensions and allowances is a fundamental right, he argues. At the amounts discussed in this report, pensions were more than EGP 1,000 below the technology and training allowance received by newly registered members.
He renewed a proposal at the latest board meeting for a EGP 500 pension increase. Covering roughly 1,900 beneficiaries would require about EGP 1 million monthly, or EGP 12 million annually. He proposed raising annual membership dues from EGP 200 to EGP 300, collecting outstanding institutional payments and using newspaper-kiosk rental income.
The board’s objection concerned the budget’s capacity rather than the principle of an increase, he says. He intends to continue pressing for implementation and full rights for retired journalists.
Concerns over opening the law to amendment
A Syndicate source who requested anonymity sees the central problem differently: how should those no longer practising participate in choosing representatives of working journalists? The source argues that allowing a substantial retired membership to influence that choice raises legal and political questions about the electorate’s composition. This is the source’s assessment, rather than an established legal ruling.
The source suggests representation through the veterans’ association chairman as a board member or observer. Observer status may be more appropriate, the source argues, since a representative not elected by the entire membership should not vote on budgets or financial decisions.
Hisham Younes, Syndicate treasurer and registration-committee member, says the disagreement extends beyond proposed wording to whether the current political and parliamentary environment permits beneficial reform.
“The present climate offers little reassurance. New provisions could strengthen restrictions instead of supporting the Syndicate’s independence or protecting journalists,” he says. Amendments could tighten existing rules or add provisions reflecting more modern tools of repression.
His concern centres on press freedom and protective guarantees. Although those guarantees are frequently violated, including when journalists are detained from their homes, he argues they must be defended and enforced rather than removed.
The interviews reveal a widening gap between today’s profession and a legal framework more than half a century old. Restrictions on registration, extensions, voting and candidacy marginalise retirees and weaken the Syndicate’s representative structure.
With zero contracts continuing, pensions inadequate and no equitable mechanism protecting work and participation after retirement, reform remains a pressing demand. Until it happens, around a thousand retired journalists continue to bear the cost of provisions that do not reflect the nature of their profession or its present conditions.
