Human Lives Human Rights: Egyptian security forces have detained a prominent journalism professor Ayman Mansour Nada after he wrote a series of articles in which he criticized media personalities close to the government, legal activists and local media have said.
Nada’s family said he was detained for days at a police station in Cairo as he awaited trial on charges of “intimidating and disrupting state institutions”, according to activists.
A judge on Tuesday ordered the renewal of Nada’s detention for 15 days pending investigation into accusations of slander and defamation against media personalities.
In his articles, Nada attacked broadcasters, journalists and officials of media institutions, most of which, he said, are linked to Egyptian intelligence and supervised by Lieutenant-Colonel Ahmed Shaaban, Kamel’s closest aide, for failing to promote Sisi’s regime at home and abroad.
Nada, scrutinized the media landscape in Egypt, with a particular focus on TV anchor Ahmed Moussa, one of Sisi’s most well-known mouthpieces. The articles criticized the lack of professionalism in the content of television programming, as well as its failure to have a real impact on public opinion.
In addition to his denunciation of Egyptian media in the past few months, Nada also wrote articles criticizing a senior official at Cairo University, accusing him of corruption.
Nada, the dean of the Radio and Television Department at Cairo University, had lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor against the official, whom he accused of using the names of Sisi and the head of intelligence Abbas Kamel, and the National Security Agency to pressure him to stop his tirades against broadcasters with links to the government.
The public prosecutor ignored the complaint he filed and arrested him instead.
