The right to reply is guaranteed.

I collected the news of officials published in the official government newspapers in 2012. I focused on news that indicated that officials had left the country for medical checkups. I wrote a report about sick state officials. The report angered one of the governors, who sent a response to the newspaper, saying that he reserved his legal right. We published the response in the same space, and I did not comment on it. However, I stopped writing this type of report so that I would not find myself in court.

After a few months, I moved to edit the satirical page. I published a joke about the former president turning into a businessman who distributes yogurt to citizens during Ramadan so that they can eat it for the rest of the year. The following week, we received a response via email and newspaper fax from a large commercial company. It said that I had modified the company’s logo and used it in the joke’s title in order to insult the product. The company said that it also reserved its legal right. The right to respond was guaranteed, and it was published in the same space in the paper newspaper.

The difference between the reality of journalism before 2014 and the reality of journalism today is stark. This week, journalist Wagdi al-Salmi received two notices from the Public Funds Investigations Department in Taiz to attend, based on a complaint filed by a former official who was replaced after the Free Media Center for Investigative Journalism, which Wagdi founded, published about the corruption surrounding the man. The complainant did not use the right of reply, guaranteed by law, as those upset by the publication did before 2014, and he also went to a body not specialized in publishing cases, and the court identified with the complainant who was supposed to be held accountable for his corruption, and summoned the journalist.

In the film, South Korean journalist Wan Kim of The Hankyoreh newspaper appears. Kim received an email from someone who provided confidential information about organized gangs that lure children and exploit them in pornographic material. The accused hunt their victims online, lure teenage girls to photograph their bodies, and gradually ask them to photograph themselves in compromising and sadistic positions to satisfy the clients’ whims. They sell this content to clients who are members of encrypted groups on Telegram. The accused also blackmail the victims by publishing their old photos if they do not receive money or new photos. They either get what they want or deliver the photos to the girls’ relatives and publish them on the Internet, exposing the victims’ locations and addresses.

The case reported by the Korean journalist did not stir public opinion, which angered the journalist. What was frustrating was that the gang leaders received the investigation and responded to it in a comical way: they published content of a new victim to celebrate the fame they gained from the newspaper. Later, the journalist cooperated with the film producers and other sources, and they reached a point where they had to involve government agencies because one of the teenage victims was about to commit suicide on the orders of the blackmailing gang leader.

Anyway, I suggested to Wajdi Al-Salami in the morning to involve government agencies in some cases that required that, and noon did not come until the specialist in public funds investigations called Wajdi and informed him of the need to attend a publication case!

Before I knew it was a summons to appear regarding a publication case, I thought they would honor Wagdy and encourage him to continue with the investigations that contribute to the fight against corruption, although the best appreciation for a journalist after his fatigue is to see the fruits of his labor through interaction and influence. But to tire himself out and pay the price of his work with his mental and physical health, then receive a summons from the competent authorities is an increase in suffering.

If this summons is in the case of a minor official, what will happen to journalists when they publish files and documents that incriminate the big bosses in power or outside it in the world of money and business?

For a corrupt person to have the power to control or to use it against a defenseless journalist is a cause for fear. Instead of protecting the journalist and ensuring that he continues to provide the public with information and facts, the relevant agencies act as agents of the party that sees the journalist as an enemy. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the continued violations against journalists, in an era in which God knows who played with the settings of everything: the press, the official agencies, and even those affected by the press who used the right to reply!