Criticising the President no Laughing Matter

By Cam McGrath

".....The shifting political landscape and new climate of freedom set the stage for Bassem Youssef, a cardiologist turned comedian who became a household name in early 2011 after posting clips on YouTube lampooning state television’s fumbling take on the revolution.
He now hosts a slicker weekly show, Al Bernameg (The Programme), which is aired on a private satellite channel and is consciously modelled on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in the U.S. In it he mocks biased local news coverage and irreverently satirises public figures, taking shots at politicians, Islamists, members of the old regime, and even his own network heads.
But Youssef’s acerbic wit touched a nerve when during a recent episode he spoke sarcastically to a red pillow stamped with the image of Mohamed Morsi, ridiculing the Egyptian president’s purported authoritarian tendencies. The comedy show presenter is now under criminal investigation on charges of “insulting the president” and “undermining his standing.”
While rights lawyers think it is unlikely that Youssef will serve time for his jokes, the case has underlined the limits on free speech that insulate Egypt’s new Islamist president from criticism. In the six months since Morsi took office the country has seen unprecedented use of a Mubarak-era law that mandates custodial sentences for those whose comments are deemed “to affront the president of the republic.”
Heba Morayef, Egypt director of Human Rights Watch, describes the “rise in criminal defamation cases, whether it is on charges of defaming the president or the judiciary” as the “greatest threat to freedom of expression” now facing Egypt. She says the cases are likely to increase “because criminal defamation is now embedded” in the constitution that was passed last month in a highly divisive referendum.....

“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of defamation cases in the six months under Morsi when compared to 30 years under Mubarak,” Eid told IPS.....

ANHRI’s Eid says that rather than reforming Mubarak’s repressive media laws, the Morsi Administration is using them to intimidate and silence its political opponents. Article 179 of the Penal Code criminalises insulting the president without defining what constitutes an insult, permitting broad room for interpretation.
“It is the right of any citizen to criticise the president,” says Eid. “The president is a public servant whose conduct and performance directly affect the lives of millions of Egyptians.”
He adds that granting the president immunity from critical opinions – whether expressed through commentary, caricature or satire – leaves the door wide open for dictatorship."