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Raisethefist.com: Egypt's Mursi accused of stifling dissent in media crackdown
Egypt's Mursi accused of stifling dissent in media crackdown
by anonymous Sat Aug 18 16:58:28 PDT 2012
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A media crackdown in the first month of Mohamed Mursi's rule has raised fears Egypt's Islamist president is moving to stifle criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This week, formal accusations by state prosecutors were filed against two journalists, while an issue of the newspaper al-Dostour was confiscated by the state's censorship unit - disappointing those who believed last year's overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak would lead to greater media freedom.
Mursi, who resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood when he was elected in June, saying he wanted to represent all Egyptians, has also named Salah Abdel Maqsood, a former colleague from the Islamist group, as information minister.
"The Brotherhood's recent actions against the media are harsh and unacceptable and tell us that we are going backwards and that things are managed the same way they were during Mubarak's time," rights activist Gamal Eid told Reuters.
The crackdown on media is also worrying the United States, which for years has secured the loyalty of one of the Arab world's most influential states with substantial financial aid, now running at about $1.55 billion a year.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Thursday that Washington was "concerned by reports that the Egyptian government is moving to restrict media freedom and criticism in Egypt."
The Brotherhood has repeatedly denied any intention to censor opinion, saying it wants only to stop media reports which might incite violence or unrest, or which personally insult the president.
"Those who filed the complaints against the journalists with the public prosecutor are not all from the Brotherhood. There were also ordinary people upset about the disgusting insults that some media have been publicizing," Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan told Reuters.
One of the two charged journalists is Islam Afifi, the editor of the daily al-Dostour newspaper, whose August 11 issue was confiscated. Afifi was sent to a criminal court after the state's public prosecutor charged him with insulting Mursi and inciting the overthrow of Egypt's ruling system.
The other one is Tawfiq Okasha, owner and the main host of an Egyptian television channel called Al-Faraeen who was also sent to a criminal court on accusations of inciting people to kill Mursi and insulting him. The prosecutor ordered the channel be taken off air.
Al-Faraeen TV channel is privately owned by Okasha, a strong opponent of Mursi and Islamists. Okasha had previously said in one of his talkshows that Mursi and his group "deserve to get killed".
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