Al Jazeera stays banned by Egypt
March 22, 2016
By Chris Forrester
Despite two legal attempts in Cairo on March 21st to reverse previous rulings that Al-Jazeera’s Egyptian channel (Al-Jazeera Misr) be prohibited in Egypt, the applications failed.
Al-Jazeera’s head office had applied to annul the Egyptian Supreme court’s earlier decision to forbid transmission of the channel on the Nilesat satellite.
The channel was ordered to close its offices in Cairo, and Nilesat to cease transmissions of the Al-Jazeera Misr service in February 2015. At the time the court said al-Jazeera had “blatantly deviated from neutrality” and “betrayed the media code of honour” in its reporting of a “revolution against the Muslim Brotherhood on 30 June 2013”.
In June 2014 Egypt sentenced 18 A-Jazeera staff to terms ranging from 7 to 11 years in prison having been convicted of charges of “incitement” against Egypt.