Officials raid Al Jazeera in Egypt

For the second time in a month, Egyptian security officials raided the offices of Al Jazeera Egypt Live in Cairo. The raid comes just before planned protests against the military provisional government in Egypt.

CAIRO, EGYPT (Catholic Online) - Following the raid, Egyptian security officials said the station did not have a permit to operate. 

Al Jazeera workers claim many of them were roughed up and say the raid is an intimidation tactic aimed at dissuading the broadcasting agency from providing live coverage of the coming round of protests against the government. Al Jazeera Live in Cairo has frequently provided live broadcasts of the various protests.  

Activists are planning the next round of protests to call for an end to military rule and an end to the 30 years of "emergency laws" which grant the government extraordinary power to arrest and punish people.

Analysts say the crackdown is part of a larger operation aimed at silencing independent media ahead of the protests. 

Human rights lawyer,  Ahmed Seif el-Islam said, "Someone, an authority or an official, is clearly getting fed up with the newly acquired freedoms in Egypt." 

While the station was shut down earlier in the month for not having a permit, the station chief, Ahmen Zein, said they had already applied for the permits and the government promised them for next week. He added that the station in Cairo is actually under construction and in the meantime they are broadcasting from Qatar. 

A government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, has admitted the station already applied for the permits, but said that they are not allowed to operate without them. He did not say when they would be provided. He declined to give any further details because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. 

Zein, said that the security officials were clad in plain clothes and refused to show ID or warrants. When staff protested, he said they were shoved against the wall and herded into a single room.
Al Jazeera Egypt Live began broadcasting to Egypt as soon as Mubarak was ousted. Although they did not have permits at that time either, they applied and were told to continue broadcasting until the permits were processed.

At that time, Al Jazeera took a supportive stance of the protests, a scandal in itself, so the newly appointed interim rulers apparently had no concern with the broadcasts. However, since the protests have turned against the military government, they have taken an increasingly hostile stance against Al Jazeera and other independent media. 

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