“THAT precision! Look at that car! Wait for the missile to come down! No one gets away.” Ahmed Moussa, an Egyptian television host, sounded like a kid playing a video game when he showed “satellite imagery” of Russia striking Islamic State in Syria last autumn. Perhaps that is because Mr Moussa was, in fact, showing clips from a video game. “We aren’t making anything up,” said Mr Moussa, as he made it all up.
Mr Moussa’s programme, called “Ala mas’uliyati” (“My Responsibility”), epitomises the absurdity of Egypt’s popular talk shows. In February a host called Khairy Ramadan was suspended after a guest claimed that women in Upper Egypt are generally unfaithful. Another host, Reham Saeed, was sentenced to six months in prison for airing the private photos of a sexual-harassment victim (whom she also blamed for the attack).
Most hosts not only support the government, but take direction from it. “I would say anything the military tells me to say out of duty and respect for the institution,” Mr Moussa told the Guardian. Others mix conspiracy and sycophancy, as when Amr Adeeb worried that “[foreign] intelligence officers who are trying to ruin our country” might kill Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the president.
Mr Sisi says back him or stay mum—but some have not. Egypt has locked...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/21GHA9G
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