Egyptian Newspaper Fires Dissident Chief Editor

CAIRO — A leading independent Egyptian daily has fired its chief editor, an outspoken government critic, amid what journalists are calling a state crackdown on the media ahead of parliamentary elections.
Ibrahim Eissa's dismissal from Al-Dustour, announced in the paper Tuesday, comes as uncertainty has grown over Egypt's political future, with parliamentary elections less than two months away and constant speculation about the health of 82-year-old President Hosni Mubarak. Presidential elections are set for next year.
Eissa had long been a vocal critic of the government. Last month he was pulled from a popular talk show he hosted on a private satellite TV station, which the Journalists' Union condemned as "an organized attack on media freedoms."
Before his firing from the newspaper, Eissa warned of a government campaign against any criticism in the media, especially in light of approaching elections that activists expect to be marred by widespread fraud.
"The Egyptian regime cannot give up cheating in elections, so the only solution for the authorities is to stop any talk about rigging, rather than stopping the rigging itself," Eissa wrote in an editorial in Al-Dustour on Sunday. "So the result is the silencing of satellite channels ... and then the turn of the newspapers will come."
Al-Dustour reported on its website early Tuesday that the paper's mogul publisher Elseyed el-Badawi fired Eissa on Monday. Eissa later told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV that he was told by the publishers they were firing him because they are under government pressure over his writings.
"They want us to shut our mouths and be silent," he said.
At the paper's Cairo office, reporters reached by phone said they were the only ones who showed up for work Tuesday while editors and management staff were absent.
Later the journalists issued a statement saying that they rejected Eissa's dismissal. "Without Ibrahim Eissa the paper will be tasteless, colorless and odorless," said the statement posted on the paper's website.