Sarah Carr reports…

The second edition of independent Egyptian daily Al-Badil’s Wednesday issue was not printed due to its tone in covering the Shoura Council fire, the paper’s editor claims.
State-run Al-Ahram Printing allegedly received orders not to print the second edition of the paper.
A huge fire which began on Tuesday evening gutted the Shoura Council.
The second edition of Al-Badil is viewable on the newspaper’s website.
Coverage of the fire is led with headlines reading “Fierce fire destroys People’s Assembly and Shoura Council committee buildings in less than two hours; flames consume Ferry, contaminated blood, cancerous pesticides and Upper Egypt train files” — a reference to several high profile and controversial incidents which occurred in Egypt in the last few years.
Other headlines state that 40 fire engines were unable to control the fire for five hours and that the paper’s journalists were prevented from covering the event.
An article alleges that the Shoura Council building was not equipped to withstand fire despite its having been renovated, and despite the fact that it houses important public documents.
Engineers are alleged to have told Al-Badil journalists that Shoura Council security staff prevented them from entering the building before the fire broke out, and that they could have prevented the fire had they been allowed entrance.
Zakaria Hassan, former head of the Nasser Military Academy, is quoted as saying, “The fire has revealed serious shortcomings in firefighting capacity because of the poverty in the country and bad planning … A special force should have been in place to fight a fire on this scale.”
Occupational safety consultant General Nader Noaman also criticizes the response to the fire in the Al-Badil article.
“There was a delay in the response to the fire which made it difficult to deal with.
“While there were trucks carrying water; at least six permanent sources of water were required in order to bring the fire under control.
“Furthermore, throwing water at the fire from planes led to the collapse of the buildings’ roofs,” Noaman is quoted as saying.

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The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information also issued a statement…