Egypt parliament to sue high-profile journalist Ibrahim Eissa

Egypt MPs approved on Tuesday that parliament lodge a complaint against the high-profile journalist Ibrahim Eissa with the country's prosecutor-general.

The unprecedented move came after MP and journalist Mostafa Bakri accused Eissa of directing insults to parliament. "Eissa wrote an article which aimed to tarnish the image of parliament, MPs, and speaker Ali Abdel-Aal himself," said Bakri.

In response, Abdel-Aal said he agreed with Bakri's statement, insisting that Eissa has become fond of directing insults to parliament all the time.

"I said many times that I respect press freedoms, but the problem now is that Eissa has become interested in attacking parliament all the time and fond of using very bad insults in this respect to achieve this objective," said Abdel-Aal, adding that "as a result, I decided that all the insults in Eissa's article on El-Maqal newspaper be referred in a complaint to prosecutor-general for investigation."

Abdel-Aal said he decided to take this move in order to safeguard the dignity of parliament against hostile press attacks. "The insults in Eissa's article are a crime and represent a deviation from press freedoms," Abdel-Aal added.

Abdel-Aal, however, refused another request from Bakri that parliament file a complaint against Ahmed El-Sayed El-Naggar, board chairman of Al-Ahram Press Organisation.

According to Abdel-Aal, Al-Ahram represents the civilization of Egypt.

"I highly respect this organisation which produced a lot of high-profile journalists who now stand at the helm of many newspapers and TV channels," said Abdel-Aal.

Abdel-Aal said although he was shocked by a piece of news which was published by Al-Ahram Arabic news website but refuses to take any action against the organisation.

In a plenary session on Monday night, speaker Abdel-Aal took all by surprise when he attacked Al-Ahram.

On Tuesday, however, Abdel-Aal said he highly respects Al-Ahram because of its balanced and reasonable coverage of events in Egypt and abroad.

Abdel-Aal also said Egypt's parliament does not include corrupt people.

"This parliament is a democratically elected institution and is ready to rid itself of any corrupt elements," said Abdel-Aal, adding that he will be ready all the time to safeguard parliament's reputation against attacks.

Source: Ahram online