Egyptian media under attack as votes from abroad are counted
The media examines media biases; an Arafat aide comes under fire for corruption and politics; and will cumin take pot’s place in Lebanon?
As results from Egypt’s expatriate vote roll in, the Arab press documents the candidates’ increasingly heated rhetoric and criticize the media’s role in the presidential race.
In an article entitled “The notorious media,” author Mohammed Al Rumeihai writes in Egypt’s Al Masry Al Youm that “the media is responsible for the insecurity and chaos, the distortion of the resistance, the tarnishing of the Islamist’s reputation, the abuse of parliament, the destruction of the judiciary’s reputation and the destruction of the revolution.”
The author goes on to say that that the parliament has recently put forth plans to “regulate radio and television broadcasts through the establishment of an independent group that represents a broad and balanced body, ensuring the freedom of information,” but says delays in this project has made its implementation unlikely.
An op-ed in Saudi daily Elaph echoes a similar note about obfuscating ideas in the media. Mohammed Al Hamamsee argues that Egyptians are falling prey to “brainwashing,” or “psychological deconstruction,” with the intent to “take the thinking person and change his will.”
“Satellite TV programs, alongside a great deal of print and radio media,” are “filling the vacuum of the former regime” in providing misinformation to its citizens, writes Hamamsee. The author closes with a concession that indeed there are “patriots who… want to inform their citizens and provide a transparent image,” but paints them as the exception and calls on the Egyptian media to challenge its standards.
The media debate comes against a backdrop of political slander by candidates and party members. Liberal Egyptian Youm7 reports today that Ahmed Shafiq accused the Muslim Brotherhood of employing terrorism. “They broke into the prisons to create chaos during the revolution… differentiate between Egyptian Muslims and Christians… and falsely accuse my success as being a ‘fraud.’”
Egypt’s most popular newspaper, Al Ahram,reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is already “cautioning against the return of fraud” in the votes from abroad.
‘Dirty war’ in the Palestinian Authority
This week Mohammed Rashid, Yasser Arafat’s former financial adviser, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia and fined 15 million dollars for embezzling public funds.
Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya reports that public criticism of Rashid continues, as the front page of the newspaper leads with an article calling him a “criminal and fugitive from justice… who does not represent the ‘political narrative’ of the Palestinians…and betrayed the model of the national project.”
The article further blasts Rashid’s past endorsement of a peace proposal with Israel that is seen as an unfair “betrayal” of Palestinian goals.
A recent statement by Rashid that Fatah is currently hiding tens of millions of dollars in Jordanian bank accounts is called “part of a plot aimed at Abbas” that is “consistent with the pressure aimed at Abbas, who firmly represents the will of the Palestinians, and rejects any solution that infringes on their right to their land and their right to the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Bekaa Valley; from green to brown
The Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold and one of the largest growers of marijuana in the region, is now turning to cumin as a potential substitute crop. An article in the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar today entitled “Cumin: exceptional and profitable farming” reports that “an invasion of cumin” is taking over the Bekaa Valley, “and it may leak out to neighboring regions over time.”
Authorities reportedly support the expansion into the growth of black cumin, a cumin variation that requires less water and can be used therapeutically in the treatment of aches and pains, asthma attacks and respiratory problems.
