CAIRO — Egypt’s president intervened to release a newspaper editor jailed over accusations of insulting him on Thursday, issuing a law for the first time since he assumed legislative powers earlier this month.
President Mohammed Morsi’s ban on detention for journalists accused of publishing-related offenses overrides a court decision earlier in the day ordering newspaper editor Islam Afifi to remain in prison pending trial in September.
The court’s decision and case against Afifi, accused of slandering the president and undermining public interest, has caused an uproar in Egypt among journalists and intellectuals, with dozens protesting Thursday night demanding the protection of free speech.
The decree affecting those awaiting trial for offenses such as libel, defamation, and slander is the first law Morsi issued since taking over legislative authorities in the absence of a parliament, and following a decision to retire a cadre of generals with whom he had shared power earlier this month.
Morsi issued the law just hours after a Cairo court ordered the imprisonment of Afifi, editor of the privately owned el-Dustour daily. Egypt’s official news agency reported shortly afterward that the attorney general had ordered Afifi’s release.
The case is one of several lawsuits brought mainly by Islamists against journalists in Egypt, accusing them of inflammatory coverage and inciting the public against the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi’s own movement and the country’s most powerful political force.
El-Dustour regularly runs articles warning of alleged Brotherhood plots and conspiracies to turn Egypt into a fundamentalist Islamic state.