5 Aug 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
“You say the Armed forces are trying to teach people democracy; this is part of the democracy you speak of, and the Egyptian people know what democracy is and how’s practiced, General”.
Television presenter Dina Abdul Rahman was responding, calm, poised, to the ranting of self-appointed “strategic expert” General Abdul Moneim Qato, who was bashing journalist Naglaa Bedir for an article criticizing the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). Dina Abdul Rahman had been discussing Bedir’s article in her show.
This interview came at the heels of a televised phone interview conducted by Abdel Rahman with SCAF member General Hassan El Roweiny, in which he blatantly admitted (boasted, even) that he regularly spread rumours during the revolution, adding “I know how powerful rumours can be”…
Abdul Rahman didn’t ambush him — she just let him speak. He fell in his own trap.
That was seemingly too much. The next day, Dina Abdul Rahman was sacked from her position as the iconic host of the “Dream Morning Show” on privately-owned television channel “Dream TV”.
The reaction, it seemed, was as loud as it was brief. On her fresh Twitter account, Abdul Rahman originally refused to say whether she was sacked or had resigned, before letting it emerge that she had indeed been fired. A number of bloggers and columnists lamented her dismissal. Columnist and fellow Dream TV presenter Belal Fadl quit in solidarity.
The matter died out soon enough though.
The longer-term repercussions hard to quantify. Daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm points out that this event raises the fear of self-censorship among journalists, and all-too-familiar practice under the Mubarak regime when his trusted “State Security” (Amn-El-Dawla) officers gave themselves the right to interfere in editorial decisions. It was a phenomenon many had hoped — and indeed, had believed — was behind us after the 25 January revolution, but is today returning to the scene. Only the actors are different — instead of the State Security, it’s the army that is putting the pressure on the media.
As for Dina Abdul Rahman, she is reportedly being courted by both OTV and Tahrir TV networks.
4 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
On Tuesday it was reported that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa threatened the chairman of The Sunday Leader, Lal Wickrematunge, by phone on 19 July. In response to an article that claimed China had given the president and his son millions of dollars to be used “at their discretion”, Rajapaksa reportedly told Wickrematunge, “you can attack me politically, but if you attack me personally, I will know how to attack you personally too.” The Sunday Leader is Sri Lanka’s only independent English-language newspaper, and has long been targeted by the government. The paper claims the 2009 murder of its former head, Lasantha Wickematunge (Lal’s brother), was never investigated fully.
4 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
40,000 copies of Izvestia Kaliningrada, a weekly published in Kaliningrad, Russia, were seized by regional governors on 29 July. Its editor was also detained for several hours at the Regional Centre for Combating Extremism. The edition, due to have been published on the eve of a visit by President Medvedev, contained an open letter to the Russian leader signed by more than 2,000 local residents calling for the regional government’s removal because several of its members were implicated in corruption. The head of the regional centre, Alexander Shelyakov, told the Interfax news agency that he intervened after being informed that the issue contained “extremist statements.” This is not a one-off event: on 4 July in St Petersburg of 90 per cent of the copies of the business weekly Kommersant Vlast were seized. The edition criticised the city’s governor Valentina Matviyenko.
4 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The provincial minister responsible for information and media in Nord-Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, has suspended a Mishapi Voice TV radio host until further notice. In a 30 July letter to the station’s CEO, Naason Kubuya Ndoole accused Jacques “Djasadjasa” Nyamugenda of “defamatory and insulting comments about the local authorities.” He claimed that, during broadcasts on the evening of 29 July, Nyamugenda insulted a provincial minister “whose conduct is irreproachable.” Ndoole did not, however, give details of the offending comments or name the minister he believed had been defamed. In the same letter, he asked Mishapi Voice TV’s chief to “initiate disciplinary action against this programme host as soon as you receive this letter”, adding that Nyamugenda “is not permitted to work for any other broadcaster in this province until further notice.”
