The Press: Egyptian Uproar

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The biggest newspaper in the Middle East is Cairo's Al Misri (The Egyptian). Taken over in 1936 by Publisher Mahmoud Aboul Fath for a few thousand dollars, it was quickly converted into the official organ of the nationalistic Wafd Party; circulation rose to 100,000 and Al Misri became a financial success as well as a powerful political force. But Publisher Fath was more interested in business than in newspapering. In Cairo, his younger brother Hussein Aboul Fath has been running Al Misri and the family's chain of other newspapers and magazines, while Owner Mahmoud lived in Geneva, dabbling in other enterprises.

Last week, before three members of the government's Revolutionary Command Council, the Aboul Fath brothers were convicted of "aiming to destroy the government," "spreading propaganda abroad" hostile to the regime, and attempting to corrupt a government employee. Sentence: a padlock on Al Misri, ten years in prison for Mahmoud, tried in absentia, a suspended 15-year sentence for his brother, plus confiscation of more than $1,000,000 of the Aboul Fath property.

Al Misri's trouble began when Strongmen Mohammed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser started their tug of war last March (TIME, March 8). The Aboul Paths and Nasser had long been friends, but the friendship shifted as rapidly as the Egyptian political winds changed. Al Misri demanded Nasser follow the Wafdist political line. When Nasser refused, the paper savagely attacked the brothers' old friend and his government. In court last week the government's prosecutor accused the Aboul Fath brothers of more than national disloyalty. Hussein was charged with intimidating public officials to get the government to buy machine guns he was selling at exorbitant prices. The Revolutionary Tribunal produced a witness who charged that Mahmoud tried to get a Swiss businessman, who had been blacklisted in Egypt, back into the government's good graces in return for a half interest in his business.

Mahmoud Aboul Fath protested that the conviction was "purely political" and an attempt to muzzle the free press. In Cairo, Western newsmen were a bit skeptical of the cry of "press freedom" in view of the Aboul Fath brothers' brand of journalism, their business dealings and political intrigue. But newsmen were also uneasy about the slim evidence the Nasser government had presented to back up its claim that the offenses were criminal and had nothing to do with politics or Al Misri's editorial policy.