A trio of stories has us downbeat about prospects for positive coverage of Egypt in the international press this week after a very nice two-week run. First, as we’ve noted above, Journalist Syndicate chief Yehia Qalash has been sentenced to two years in prison for reportedly harbouring “fugitives,” and wire coverage has been picked up most major news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal. (We might have learned from the imprisonment of the so-called “Marriott Cell” of Al Jazeera English journalists that scribes around the world tend to react more than a little negatively when one of their own is imprisoned.)

Also likely to influence sentiment this morning are two stories from the Associated Press, including Maggie Michael’s “Egyptian fish vendor latest victim of alleged police abuses” (with its echoes of the fish vendor whose death touched off relatively rare protests in Morocco) and “Amnesty warns new Egypt rights bill ‘draconian’.” Both pieces are getting wide pick up this morning.