Egyptian TV host shamed for likening Sissi to Hitler
After Azza Elhannawy criticizes president on air for acting like a dictator, colleagues take to body-shaming female anchor
An Egyptian female TV host was slammed and body-shamed by colleagues after she criticized the country’s president and compared him to Adolf Hitler.
Host Azza Elhannawy said during a show aired on Sunday last week that she wanted Egypt to move in the right direction. “We want there to be a rule of law and real social justice,” she said on air.
“We don’t want people to be arrested or to be made to disappear,” she continued. “If the journalists’ union would not have demonstrated, our colleagues who are incarcerated would not have received medical treatment.”
These issues were all brought before President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Elhannawy said, but “nothing has been done.” Many human rights activists have been banned from traveling, she added, explaining that “a state is not just the president.”
Police officers “beat and sometimes kill” citizens, she said in a clip translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
She cited one speech by Sissi, saying that it was like a speech by Hitler, declaring a dictatorship in the country. Elhannawy mimiced the Nazi salute with her hand as she said this.
She also charged that Sissi “has not solved a single thing” since he assumed power.
In a show aired on Thursday on Assema TV, host Azmi Mogahed lashed out at Elhannawy. “A lot has been said about that heavyweight TV host. She reminds me of a sumo champion,” said Mogahed.
“She interviewed a respected journalist but she didn’t give him an opportunity to talk. She read out what she had written. If only she had written things that were true, but what she wrote and said was wrong and her language is very flat,” Mogahed continued. “Where is the censorship on TV? Is nobody watching this?”
A day earlier, host Tamer Amin said on Al Hayat TV that what Elhannawy said was “her own personal opinion.”
Some people filed a complaint with the Egyptian attorney general following Elhannawy’s comments, accusing her of insulting the president, said Amin.
Amin said that while the attorney general is “free to form his opinions,” Elhannawy’s critique did not belittle the president. But, Amin said, as someone working in the same profession, he had a personal problem with her comments.
He too then took to criticizing Elhannawy’s weight, advising television executives to “place scales at the entrance to each of the studios,” claiming that “looks and appearance are very important in the case of a TV host.
“A radio show host is free to look like an elephant seal, because we only hear his voice, but looks make at least 30%-40% of a successful TV host. You cannot have a TV host, male or female, weighing 100-150 kg. appear on TV. This is not done,” said Amin.