English translation of draft Egyptian broadcast law

Someone intrepid over at Arab Media & Society has put up an English translation of the Egyptian draft broadcast law originally published here by Almasry Alyoum. As Marc Lynch has pointed out, the definition of “broadcasting” is overly broad, so as to ensnare things such as blogging and Facebook activity. They define “audiovisual broadcasting” as:

any and all coded or decoded broadcasting, transmission or provision of voices or images or both together or any other representation thereof, orsignals or writings of any kind that are not taken as private correspondence that the public, particular categories, or individuals are allowed to receive and interact with. This includes broadcasting through telecommunication, cables or satellites, computer networks, digital media or any other broadcasting, communication, or provision mediums or techniques.

The bill establishes an authority responsible for regulating all broadcasting, ensuring its accuracy, licensing it, and prohibiting all the fun stuff like

negatively impacting social peace, national unity, citizenship, public order and public moral codes.

You can read the whole bloody thing here at the AMS website, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s quite boring.