CAIRO: Egypt's al-Azhar students of the group “Azharians Without Borders” said they are launching a campaign to shut down the Faraeen TV channel for their blatant support of the military council and ousted President Hosni Mubarak. The group plans to boycott the companies that advertise on the channel starting Sunday. Faraeen channel is owned by Tawfiq Okasha, a hated and unpopular figure for his affiliations with the old regime. Okasha, on his own show, attacks victims of police and army violence suggesting that it is their fault for being attacked. He is consistently defending the generals of the military and justifies their mistakes and faults to his audience. It has been reported that Okasha pays protesters in the Abbasiya neighborhood of Cairo to attend pro-military demonstrations, such as the one that took place last Friday and drew a few thousand protesters. He pays them to attend and also pays bodyguards to secure the stages he erects to give speeches. He was a member of the last parliament of 2010 and pictures of him kissing hands of former officials, currently in prison, have been circulating around on social websites as activists hope to expose him to the whole country. Some commentators say he is similar to America's Glenn Beck, a right wing radio talkshow host, in how extreme both are, and in the amount of “lies and misinformation their shows have.” Different groups have called on Egyptians to stop tuning in to the channel, yet the channel is not as high on the overall viewership as other news outlets in the country. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/upUuC Tags: Azhar, featured, Lawsuit, Okasha, SCAF, Students Section: Latest News
