VZCZCXYZ0017
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHEG #2473 1171236
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 271236Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7683
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS CAIRO 002473 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC STAFF FOR SINGH 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINS PHUM KPAO EG
SUBJECT: EGYPTIAN SECURITY DETAINS AL-JAZEERAH BUREAU 
CHIEF, FOR ALLEGEDLY ERONEOUS REPORTS 
 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect accordingly. 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  The GOE detained Al-Jazeerah's Cairo bureau chief, 
Hussain Abdel Ghani, in Dahab on April 26, where he was 
reporting on the recent Sinai terror bombings, on charges of 
disturbing the peace and spreading false information.  (As of 
1430 on April 27, Abdul Ghani remained under detention.) 
Al-Jazeerah broke several controversial stories in the past 
few days.  Al-Jazeerah's initial reports on the April 24 
Dahab bombings asserted that at least "100 people had been 
killed, wounded," which was initially interpreted by many 
here as 100 fatalities.  (Current fatality counts range from 
18-24.)  Al-Jazeerah also reported on April 26, in the 
immediate aftermath of the suicide attacks on the MFO in 
northern Sinai, that there had been yet another terror attack 
in Belbees, Sharqiya governorate.  GOE spokesmen quickly 
denounced reports of violence in Sharqiya as false.  Citing 
unnamed security sources, however, an AFP report noted that 
police in Belbees had exchanged fire with narcotics 
traffickers. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  GOE annoyance with Al-Jazeerah reporting is not 
new.  In May 2005, GOE security forces briefly detained eight 
members of an Al-Jazeerah team as they attempted to cover a 
meeting of the Cairo Judge's Club.  In November 2005, unknown 
assailants assaulted Al-Jazeerah talk show host Ahmed Mansour 
outside his office.  Although the Mansour assault was never 
definitively linked to the GOE, it was seen by many GOE 
critics as part of a pattern of assaults by plain-clothes 
thugs on journalists whose reporting has irked powerful 
elements within the GOE.  A November 2004 assault by the 
then-editor of Al-Araby, Abdul Halim Qandil--which left 
Qandil battered and clad only in his underwear on the side of 
a desert highway--was the most prominent recent example of 
such assaults. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Comment:  Al-Jazeerah coverage regularly upsets 
the GOE, which worries about its influence both domestically 
and across the Arab world.  During a visit to Qatar several 
years ago, after a tour of the Al-Jazeerah studio, President 
Mubarak cynically quipped, "All this trouble from a 
matchbox."  The detention and investigation of Abdel Ghani 
suggests that, notwithstanding President Mubarak's 2004 
pledge to eliminate jail time for journalists convicted of 
press offenses, there continue to be officials in the GOE who 
are willing to take a tough line with journalists whose 
reporting crosses certain vaguely-defined "red lines."  End 
comment. 
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