In Egypt, an appeals court has overturned the one-year sentence of a newspaper editor jailed for criticizing President Hosni Mubarak. Ibrahim Eissa heads the weekly newspaper al-Dustour. He had been convicted under an Egyptian law that allows third parties to sue others for defaming government officials. On Tuesday, an appeals judge overturned the jail sentences but upheld the third-party law. Eissa criticized that decision after the verdict was read.

Ibrahim Eissa: “I believe that this verdict is one of the signs of the restrictions placed on the press in Egypt, and it opens the doors of hell for Egyptian journalists, because anyone — any citizen, any lawyer or any member of a political party — can bring a court case against any writer or any newspaper about any news item, and it will result in endless harassment (in court) of Egyptian journalists, irrespective of whether they are opposition journalists or otherwise.”