RSF: “more than 100 journalists since Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ousted Morsi in a coup in July 2013”
Reporters without Borders (RSF) said in a report that little remains of the Revolution with the state-sponsored media using the day now to celebrate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the police. The report addressed what it called “Sisification” of Egypt’s media, meaning bringing media in Egypt under the authoritarian regime of General al-Sisi turning to be a trumpet for the official discourse of the regime. This appeared in the blackout imposed on the premature death of the late President Mohamed Morsi in his detention, which was said to be due to medical negligence and bad conditions of imprisonment. “Ten years after the Egyptian revolution, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government has muzzled the country’s journalists and media,” said Sabrina Bennoui, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “Journalists can no longer say what they think and have no choice but to repeat the official line or risk being jailed for threatening the state’s stability.”
RSF’s report highlighted that half of the media in Egypt became controlled directly by the state with direct ownership or through companies affiliated to the security bodies. More than 500 websites were blocked in a direct violation of the freedom of press. Moreover, more than 100 journalists have been arrested since 2014, although the Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry states repeatedly that no journalists are prisoned in Egypt as those journalists are prisoned for terrorism charges without evidence.
32 journalists are still detained in al-Sisi’s prisons, some of them are suffering dangerous medical conditions such as Amir Abdel Moneim, the managerial editor of Shaab weekly (The People), who remembers the late journalist Mohamed Mounir, who caught COVID19 in prison and was release to die in home. Others are subjected to torture and smearing as the well-known journalists Esraa Abdel Fattah and Mohamed Salah.
Recent Comments