Egypt

The draft law would establish a new national agency to issue all broadcast licenses, and to regulate and censor all forms of broadcast media. It defines broadcast media very broadly to include the internet and all other forms of communicating text, video or audio. It also defines prohibited content incredibly broadly, as anything which negatively affects social peace, national unity, the principle of citizenship, public order or public ethics. In short, the proposal would grant the Egyptian government near-totalitarian control over all forms of media.

In his latest attempt to prod me into action, Ali E sent me this link to a post from the Infidel Blogger Alliance. It’s a sad day when the opposition doesn’t have to reach anywhere for material, and this is such a day: while I haven’t independently confirmed the virulently anti-Jewish remarks of Egyptian TV host Sheikh Muhammad Sharaf ed-Din, I would not be at all surprised to find they were true. Anti-Jewish sentiment is so rampant in Egypt that using the word ‘rampant’ is almost redundant; it’s sufficient to say that anti-Jewish sentiment Is. With the exception of the rare self-educated individual, it’s difficult to find an Egyptian under the age of about sixty-five or seventy who does not openly pine for the days when Rommel sunned himself on the beaches of Alamein.