Mainstream media pledges to limit criticism of Sisi's dictatorship

New York Times

Egyptian Media to Limit Criticism of Government

OCT. 26, 2014

DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MERNA THOMAS

CAIRO — A group of Egyptian newspaper editors pledged Sunday to limit their criticism of state institutions, a day after Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, warned of a “conspiracy” behind a militant attack last week that killed at least 31 soldiers.

The editors said they condemned the attack, which occurred on Friday in the Sinai Peninsula, while promising to confront the “hostile culture toward the national project and the foundations of the Egyptian state.”

The statement raised the likelihood of growing limits on dissent, and appeared to be an attempt to please Mr. Sisi, who drastically sharpened his own tone on Saturday in dealing with the simmering Islamist insurgency centered in the Sinai Peninsula that escalated after the military takeover in July 2013.

In discussing Friday’s attack — the deadliest assault on the Egyptian military in years — Mr. Sisi grew visibly angry, vaguely blaming foreign plots that he said sought to “break Egypt’s will.”

“Egypt is undergoing an existential battle,” he said, adding, “We must know the dimensions of the big conspiracy against us” that aims “to bring down this state.” And he warned of more hardship to come.

“There is struggle, pain and blood,” he said, recounting the hundreds of soldiers and police officers who have been killed in militant attacks. “Sinai’s battle is ongoing, it will not end in a few weeks or couple of months. Please, let us stand steadfast, and let no one break the will of the Egyptian people, or the army.”

Over the last few days, Egypt’s state institutions and the government’s loyalists have banded together, condemning terrorism but also moving against any kind of dissent against the government.

On Saturday, the owner of a major private satellite network replaced a talk-show host, Mahmoud Saad, who had been mildly critical of the government. In a statement, Al Nahar Television did not refer to a specific incident, but said that “freedom of expression cannot ever justify ridicule of the Egyptian Army’s morale.”

Other television programs known for showing opposing views in the past three years or more have quietly gone off the air. 

The private Egyptian news media has spoken in virtually unanimous support of the current government since Mr. Sisi, then a general, ousted President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year. The statements by Al Nahar and the newspaper editors appeared to formalize the private news media’s policies of support for the government.

Also on Sunday, a Cairo criminal court sentenced 23 non-Islamist activists to three years in prison followed by three years of police surveillance for organizing an unauthorized street demonstration in June.

The activists were demonstrating against stringent restrictions on street protests and other forms of assembly imposed after the military takeover, and on Sunday they were sentenced under the same law.

Among the high-profile defendants was Sanaa Seif, 20, a member of a prominent family of leftist activists, and the lawyer Yara Sallam, 28, of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Each was also fined $1,400. Thousands of others — including Islamists and other activists — have been jailed for protests since the takeover.