The Egyptian military-backed interim government decided Friday to ban El-Shaabnewspaper, the last opposition newspaper operating in Egypt after the July 3 military coup.
El-Shaab is owned by The Independence Party. It is considered the last newspaper opposing the military overthrow of Egypt's first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.
Interim Prime Minister Hazem Al-Beblawy said that the government filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor against El-Shaab newspaper "because its writings threaten national security".
"The newspaper has been suspended because of its unprofessional practices and its explicit incitement to violence and terrorism against the state," Al-Beblawy told the pro-military Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper.
The newspaper is published by the "New Labour Party" which changed its name two months ago to "the Independence Party". It had also been shut down by the Mubarak regime in 1990.
Magdy Hussein, the chief editor of El-Shaab, said he did not receive any confirmation from authorities regarding the closure.
"However, it not surprising for putschists to crackdown on media freedom and confiscate media outlets," he said.
"We have been expecting this decision all the time and we considered every issue to be the last issue.
"The revolution will not be hindered with the closure of a newspaper. We will continue our work online which targets a wider audience.
"Coup authorities are the biggest losers because otherwise they would have been able to claim they allowed a narrow margin of freedom and democracy," Hussein concluded his remarks.
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