Head of Egypt’s Press Syndicate denies tension with Interior Ministry

Head of Egypt’s Press Syndicate Abdel Mohsen Salama denied any tension between his syndicate and Egypt’s Interior Ministry, revealing that he visited Minister of Interior with Egyptian author Makram Mohamed Ahmed. He added that he invited the minister for visiting the syndicate in the near future, stressing that the syndicate is considered a major part of the Egyptian state.

He blamed January 25 Revolution for the increasing losses witnessed in the country since its beginning, as it allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to rule the country. He added that the newspapers in Egypt suffered from increasing losses since the launch of Egypt’s revolution. The issue of Egyptian news websites blocked by the government will be "resolved" in the coming week, the head of Egypt's journalists' syndicate said on Sunday.

In comments carried by state-run news agency MENA, Abdel-Mohsen Salama said the issue would be fixed within a week at the most, although he didn't say whether this meant those websites currently blocked would be unblocked. In May, several websites in Egypt were blocked for allegedly publishing and broadcasting content showing support for terrorism and extremism, according to a security source cited by MENA at the time.

A total of 21 websites were blocked in Egypt, including Al-Jazeera, Al-Sharq TV channel website, Misr El-Arabia, El-Shaab, Arabi 21, Rasd, and Hamas Online. The source said the government would take legal action against those sites that "spread lies". Several other websites that were not named by the government were also blocked around the same time.

These included news website Mada Masr, which was launched in 2013 by a group of journalists formerly of Al-Masry Al-Youm’s Egypt Independent, as well as Huffington Post Arabic. Prior to Egypt's action in May, authorities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) blocked the main website of Qatar's Al-Jazeera TV, which the countries accuse of sponsoring terrorism.