Egyptian newspaper editors and chiefs have never been a brave lot. They usually follow the official line, whoever is in power. The only recent exception has been during the Morsi era of one year when the Egyptian media had its freest period of the modern era. Criticism and disrespect of Morsi was rampant and allowed freely during that one year. Imagine: the freest era of journalism was under the brief Muslim Brotherhood MB rule. That might have changed if the MB rule had continued, but we will never know that for certain.

Recently Egyptian newspaper editors have issued a pledge to refrain from publishing criticism the regime of Al Sisi. They said criticism would support “extremists”. A group of 350n reporters issued their own petition against this attempt to further cub freedom of the press.
Why do I feel that a lot of Egyptian journalists will be seeking new jobs soon? Of course they can always say that they were merely “advising” their bosses………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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