Opposition journalist abducted and beaten

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned the use of violence to intimidate journalists after editor Abdel Halim Qandil was abducted and beaten by thugs who threatened to kill him unless he stopped "talking about people in high places". Qandil, editor of the weekly Nasserite magazine Al-Arabi and one of the country's most outspoken opposition journalists, was bundled into a car and beaten up in Cairo on 2 November. The worldwide press freedom organisation called on the Egyptian authorities to carry out a full and thorough investigation to quickly find and punish his attackers. "We urge the Egyptian authorities to see that the law is respected," it said. "This kind of crude and violent intimidation of journalists should have no place in Egypt. The authorities' obligation to react firmly to such threats is all the greater since it involves a journalist known as a fierce critic of the government and of President Hosni Mubarak." Qandil told Reporters Without Borders that a car pulled up next to him at around 3am as he was returning to his home in the south of Cairo after eating the "souhour", the last meal permitted before the start of the daily Ramadan fast. "Four people grabbed me and forced me onto the back seat of their car. They blindfolded me and for one hour beat me and threatened to kill me," he said. "They also stole everything I had on me, my mobile phone, my diary, my glasses, my bag containing articles that were due to be published in the next edition of Al-Arabi and they even stripped me of my clothes and left me in an area of desert outside Cairo." His assailants repeatedly told him, "You have to stop talking about people in high places". Qandil was left with minor injuries, chiefly bleeding to one eye and bruising to a shoulder, an arm and to his face. Al-Arabi has recently been running a press campaign objecting to a possible further mandate for President Hosni Mubarak in 2005 and the "hereditary" tendencies of those in power. Despite official denials, the opposition suspects the president's son Gamal Mubarak of seeking to take over from his father, who has been in power for 23 years. A 31 October article carried by Al-Arabi condemned "mass arrests" carried out by the authorities as part of the investigation into the 7 October bombings of three Sinai hotels, patronised chiefly by Israeli tourists.