Egypt: Journalist sentenced to one year in prison for defamation

In light of the state's unjustified ignorance of the President's promise to annul prison sentences in publication cases, on Tuesday 7 March 2006 the Giza Criminal Court issued a one-year imprisonment verdict against Amira Malash, a journalist for Al-Fagr newspaper, in case 1381 [2006]. In his testimony to the representative of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), Nashaat Agha, the journalist's lawyer, declared that the session in court had not exceeded seven minutes when the verdict was issued.