Human rights activists are taking legal action to stop the implementation of a recent governmental decree which imposes new regulations on news SMS services, Mona El-Nahhas follows up
________________________________________

Opposing the decree passed on 11 October by the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to regulate the transmission of news SMS text messages, a number of human rights organisations are suing both the NTRA and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to which the NTRA is an affiliate. They say the move constitutes veiled censorship and would squeeze out the voice of the opposition.

The Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Profession of Law filed a lawsuit in the Administrative Court last week suing both Tareq Kamel, the minister of communications and Amr Badawi, chairman of the NTRA. In the lawsuit, the centre calls for abolishing the decree, which they said hinders one of the most important tools of spreading information in modern media.

According to the decree, to continue distributing en masse text messages to mobile phones, companies offering such services should immediately acquire a licence from the authorities concerned. In this connection, the NTRA informed the three licensed mobile phones companies to stop sending such SMS messages to users until they were sure that the service providers have received their licence.

Kamel stated that there was no intention to ban providers from getting the licence so long as they are committed to the rules which conform with Law 10/2003 regulating communications. The minister added that companies working in this field will be granted a grace period to legalise its conditions according to the new regulations.

Providers of such services are mainly press institutions, civil society organisations and political parties. But human rights activists say only providers with governmental leanings will receive the licence. "In this case, they guarantee that the content of the SMS text messages will be void of news revealing rights violations," said Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information.

"Such a decree came as part of an organised campaign launched by the government against opposition and independent media and all movements calling for democracy and reform," the Arab network said in an angry statement. "This reveals clearly the government's intention to silence all opposing voices ahead of the upcoming polls," the statement said.

Bahieddin Hassan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, said, "When a governmental decree is passed suddenly without giving logical justifications for passing it, one should worry. And when such a decree comes amid a series of measures which aim at muzzling freedom, our worries should double."

According to Hassan, the issue is more than the upcoming parliamentary polls. "It is just that the regime feels it should not be questioned anymore about the legitimacy of the next president," Hassan said.

Political forces, legal experts and journalists condemned the decree which they said violates both Egyptian legislation and international conventions regarding freedom of expression.

Said Shoheib, head of the Unified Journalists Centre, said the decree constitutes a flagrant violation of press freedom and the right of information. "It's illogical to ask a press institution, already working in publishing news, to get a governmental licence for transmitting news." Shoheib called upon the Press Syndicate to firmly reply to such new shackles "which will not be the last".

Shadi Abdel-Karim, the executive director of the Right Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, said such measures which come ahead of parliamentary polls aim at shackling election monitoring. "Faced with such new obstacles, monitors will be prevented from revealing, via SMS messages, elections violations," Abdel-Karim said, noting that all messages will be filtered and examined before being distributed.

Mahmoud El-Gweini, advisor to Minister Kamel, said in press reports that the new measures are not intended to place restrictions on the content of the message. "It just aims at legalising the conditions of such service providers.

This will help organise the process of publishing and transmitting information and protecting the industry from random misleading or false messages which may stir up unrest in the society," El-Gweini said, adding that such measures will be taken once and for all.

Each company providing an SMS service must go to the authority concerned to receive a licence. For example, companies giving fatwa s or religious opinions via SMS text messages should acquire a licence from Al-Azhar to ensure that such a provider is qualified to issue a fatwa.