CAIRO: The recent news about a purchase deal of daily independent El-Dostor newspaper is nothing but a rumor, editor-in-chief Ibrahim Eissa told Daily News Egypt Tuesday.
“There are no deals underway on selling El-Dostor whatsoever,” Eissa added.
Eissa didn’t appear as a guest Monday on independent satellite On TV’s program Manshit as announced, which further stirred a rumor that he wished to escape answering a question about the alleged purchase.
“I was out of town at that time and it was not even confirmed that I would be hosted on the show,” he explained.
Rumors were circulated within the press community that El-Wafd Party was attempting to buy El-Dostor and use it an arm for the opposition party other than its official newspaper of the same name.
“I think such a rumor came up after El-Wafd president El-Sayed El-Badawy paid a visit to El-Dostor publisher Essam Ismail Fahmy to express gratitude for supporting him during the recent party elections,” Eissa noted.
Earlier in July 2009, another rumor suggested that former MP Mohamed Esmat El-Sadat attempted to enter into an agreement with Fahmy to buy the newspaper.
“And you will probably hear about another one in 2011,” Eissa said sarcastically.
The outspoken newspaper was published by Ismail with an off-shore license from Cyprus and first hit newsstands in 1995.
At that time, most of the press was controlled and run by the state which had nationalized media following the 1952 Free Officers’ Coup.
El-Dostor was a novel product on the media scene in several ways as it ran opinion articles from writers across the ideological spectrum, from Islamists to Marxists.
It also took an editorial line exceptionally critical of the regime, focusing on corruption among high-level officials, democracy and governance, and a hardline stance against normalization with Israel.
The newspaper was eventually closed down by the authorities in 1998 for publishing a letter, allegedly by El-Gama’a El-Islamiya (the Islamist Group), including a death threat against three prominent Christian businessmen.
The publication of the letter stirred angry reactions among many readers, who felt that El-Dostor attempted to incite a sectarian strife.
In 2004, the newspaper was granted a local license to appear again as a weekly newspaper following the same old trend of outspoken criticism.
A few years later, the newspaper turned into a daily publication encompassing a wide variety of high-profile writers and maintaining the same critical ideology.
