Popular Egyptian TV host Yousri Fouda's decision to suspend his program has stirred angry responses over the country's ruling military council's role in cracking down on media in Egypt. Fouda's decision came after his Thursday show with guest, novelist Alaa al-Aswany and opposition writer and editor in-chief Ibrahim Essa, was ordered off the air on the ON TV private satellite channel. The direct intervention in media has raised many questions over the increasing power and control of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the supposed gains of the revolution. Fouda released a statement on Friday saying that a stand against deterioration is needed. “A large part of the pre-revolution mentality still rules, if not worse,” Fouda said. “That deterioration stems from the belief that those in power have, that media could deny an existing fact or create fictional ones, and that is the larger context that I refuse to be part of.” Potential presidential nominee Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on his personal Twitter account that “oppressing freedom of thought and expression in media is a destruction of the newly born democracy.” A new Facebook page titled “we are all Yousri Fouda” was born in support of the media figure who enjoys respect and admiration from large sections of the Egyptian population. The Freedom of Thought and Expression Foundation (FTEF) condemned what they called “the continuing oppression of media from the authorities” in a statement released on Saturday. “The Egyptian authorities should stop its shameful practices towards the media and stop intervening,” the statement read. “The oppression that media workers have been suffering has been increasing in recent weeks, which casts doubts over the seriousness of the state in achieving more freedoms for the Egyptians.” The SCAF has been widely criticized for its involvment in public freedom since the January revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak's regime. The 30 years of Mubarak's rule of Egypt was infamous in its crackdown of media and opposition vioces, imprisoning tens of journalists or forcing them to pay high fines for articles they wrote. The former regime was also notorious in going after bloggers and independent voices, with several cases of citizen journalists being handed harsh sentences for posts they wrote. The current transitional military power seems to be following in the footsteps of the old regime, as they too have imprisoned bloggers, summoned and prosecuted journalists and raided and halted television channels from airing. The council's most used tool to silence opposition is putting them through a swift military trial. Rights activists say over 12,000 people have gone in front of military trials in the past 7 months. Last month, the ruling council sent a fax to all newspaper forbidding them from publishing any news, pictures, videos or other military related material without first running the segments by the military intelligence. An army officer currently resides at al-Ahrma print house, where most of Egypt's published news gets printed, and his sole job is approving what goes to print and what gets canned. An issue of the opposition Sout al-Oumah newspaper was confiscated last month after it had a military story that the council didn't approve. That same week another publication was confiscation at the same print house for publishing a story about an Israeli spy that was allegedly protected during the former regime. The banning caused a stir among journalists, who threatened to enter an open strike, but the uproar ended up with few known daily and weekly columnists leaving their usual column blank in opposition. Last summer, Dina Abdel Rahman, a TV presenter with Dream TV, was fired after having a heated debate on air with a SCAF general. Moments after her morning show ended she was summoned by the owner of the channel, business mogul Ahmed Bahgat, who told her to pack her things and leave. “The continuing oppression from the ruling council's part show weakness in the authorities positions that can not handle free media and is an extension of Muabark's policies if not worse,” said FTEF. BM
