Luxor4u

Worse In Every Way.

The BBC doesn’t like the current ‘arrangements’ in Egypt.

The BBC correspondent in Egypt for the past four/five year can be frank about current arrangements because she is now out of Egypt. She describes them as worse than awful – particularly in terms of torture, disappearances and deaths. The BBC interview is way more direct, negative and frank than I’ve heard from them in a time.

Particular points she made in an interview which was emotional but rational are:

1. 1500 persons are missing. The BBC believes the real number is much higher and that most are dead – killed by the authorities. Mostly relatives of the missing were frightened to give an interview or have their names used.

2. The clampdown on human rights is much worse than under Mubarak.

3. The authorities don’t care about human rights or accusations of abuse.

4. All arrangements and abuses have the objective of keeping power in current hands.

5. There is very limited media freedom. Last year 20 journalists were put in jail – 12 ‘for absolutely nothing’. Egypt is the 3rd worst country in the world for media suppression only exceeded by pure toilets.

6. Police have threatened to shoot BBC reporters in news situations which were not compromising to the Government – the police and related authorities appear out of control and brutal. Torture is very widespread.

They asked for responses on related matters from several Ministries in Egypt and from the London Ambassador. There were no replies.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... over_egypt

It’s a bit easy for Westerners to give small weight to the generalized suffering and injustice to maintain the status quo.

If the BBC hates you other media will take guidance. This is further confirmation that all media in the West hates Egypt and will likely have an impact on Western opinion and Western politicians. However as Newcastle has said before Egypt doesn’t care less. He is possibly right. My point is that political and economic isolation may have an effect but maybe the leadership are so thick headed they wont change. My other point is that an internal ‘reality’, which is widely different to an external reality, can’t last long.

Meanwhile international debt markets don’t care and the recent sale of Egyptian debt has been positive as have the recent Fitch ratings. I regard both as absurd and not based on real data or good judgment.

An aside. Insulting various people is an offence is Egypt. Remarkably insulting the IMF is also an offence and at least one person detained, Mohammed Adel – previously detained for three years hard labor for protesting without approval. His current whereabouts is not clear. My god in the West the IMF is subject to regular attack – often by Nobel Prize winners in Economics or major political figures but in Egypt no one is allowed to attack it – because it is perfect. Pity its current Chief Executive has been convicted of negligence in relation to a E800 million corrupt payment to a French mogul and the previous head of sexual perversion. It seems an organization with dubious leadership – judged by normal, but maybe not Egyptian, standards. http://www.afriscaper.com/egypt-begins- ... companies/

So are you saying the BBC is wrong Hafiz? It's common knowledge that for your own safety and peace of mind you have to keep your trap shut if living or working there. I honestly believe a lot of the things you have reported about the BBC are true and do happen on a regular basis and maybe the BBC have only half lifted the lid to see whats underneath. I am out of it all now, don't have to worry about visa's, work permits, licenses or anything else anymore really....And basically that's the behind the scenes living in the place, worrying about this that and the other.

Regarding insults to leaders can you imagine how many more jails would need to be built in the UK and especially the US when it comes to disagreeing with political leaders. Its a part of democracy and free speech which everyone is entitled to, except for dictator lead governments.

Very Oppressive

Irony can be a powerful tool in rhetoric....but it goes over the head of some people

Somewhat surprisingly, the Egyptian side haven't leapt to express outrage at the BBC Report, call in the Ambassador or whatever....well. not yet anyway.

Maybe they take the view "least said......soonest mended".

They're probably right.

I've just watched this half hour program, or time filler more like it. Nothing new, same old same old. But one thing was quite evident at the end of the report, today, like yesterday, no one has any interest in what happens in Egypt.

Well...here's the Egyptian rebuttal of the BBC prog. Rather lengthy.


State Information Service rebuts BBC’s ‘The shadow over Egypt’
By: Mirit Agaiby Sun, Feb. 25, 2018

CAIRO – 25 February 2018: In reply to a feature and documentary published by the BBC under the title “The shadow over Egypt”, the State Information Service (SIS) issued a statement rebuking the reporter, Orla Guerin, for committing “journalistic misdemeanors”.

The feature is written with the supposed testament of several individuals who have reportedly been subjected to torture by Egyptian authorities for being involved in protests or being thought of has having been involved in protests when they haven’t, as they claim.

Yet, the SIS issued a statement focusing on some “shadows” or loopholes in Guerin’s narrative. The first of which was concerned with her first character, a woman called Zubeida, to which the SIS questioned: “The BBC’s report did not mention any personal information pertaining to the case of the so-called “Zubeida”, which has reportedly disappeared. Despite showing photos and videos of her and her mother and their home, which casts a shade of doubt on the writer’s intentions and objectives … it is impossible to follow up “Zubeida’s” case without information about her and her case. Additionally, the SIS has tried several times to contact the reporter on her phone… but she did not answer.”

In another point, Guerin also stated that when Zubeida was allegedly taken by forces, that she “had her brother’s mobile and managed a quick call to a relative, according to her mother. ‘He could hear the officer insulting her and then the phone was switched off.’” To this point the SIS questioned how her brother could identify from the man’s voice that he was an Egyptian authority.

“It is not known to the SIS that there were any technological methods through which one could identify a person’s identity and occupation simply from listening to his voice; save of course if the writer and the mother have this technological ability that isn’t known to mankind yet,” the SIS’s report said.

Some of the statistics that Guerin relied on came from an organization named “The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom”. Yet the SIS claimed in their report that this organization was in fact a terrorist organization affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood and cloaked under “human rights” to fulfill its goals. “The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms has documented at least 1,500 enforced disappearances in the past four years, but some believe the real figure is much higher. In the words of a leading campaigner, Mohamed Lotfy, “making people disappear is a hallmark of the regime of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi”,” Guerin stated.

To this, the SIS’s report replied: “Of the writer’s most dangerous claims was the one pertaining to human rights in Egypt, named the commission or the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms under the leadership of Mohamed Lotfy. In reality the organization is a political one following the Muslim Brotherhood, wearing the cloak of human rights, and was launched in August 2014. This organization is the Egyptian branch to what is called the International Commission for Rights and Freedoms, which was founded in Doha on October 9, 2013, with a declaration from an international conferenced under the title “The World in the Midst of Overturning the Peoples’ Will”, which was held in Istanbul on September 25 and 26, 2013.”

The SIS’s statement also tackled what they deemed as contradictions, bias, and personal impressions in Guerin’s narrative. For instance, when Guerin brought up the imprisonment of Alaa Abdel Fattah, the man she referred to as the “Icon of the 2011 Revolution”, she failed to mention any torture that he had or is being subjected to. To that end as well, the SIS have caught up on some of Guerin’s claims regarding President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, where she claims that her impressions of him since before taking office have been negative.

In terms of further bias that the SIS rebutted against, the report mentioned that Guerin’s video and photos only showed the parts of Egypt that strike a message of poverty and direness, in a manner that generalized the image of Egypt thusly. “Her video footage failed to show anything of Egypt, not even the cafes she used to meet her sources or the neighborhoods she had lived in,” the statement read.

http://www.egypttoday.com/Article/2/437 ... t%E2%80%99

The transcript of the actual SIS statement is available at :

http://www.sis.gov.eg/Story/125711?lang=en-us

I'm glad to hear that the BBS report “The shadow over Egypt”,is a tissue of lies

The BBC is well-known for promulgating falsehoods. It has a reputation second to none in this respect as all the world knows.

Despite the photos and video shots the report contained for the so-called “Zubeida”, the girl who was allegedly a victim of enforced disappearance, for her mother and for their house, the report did not refer to any data or information on the status of the so-called “Zubeida” so as to be able to follow-up on the developments of her case.

Unforgivable. The Egyptian authorities always fully investigate cases of alleged torture and bring the perpetrators to trial. Only a few weeks ago two officers were reprimanded for exceeding their authority. Without any useful information how are they expected to solve the alleged crime.

The report writer relied on unknown sources that she referred to as “lawyers, human rights campaigners and former prisoners” without bothering herself even once to identify any of them in spite of the serious claims quoted by them as alleging that “torture is a must” and a “routine” in Egyptian prisons.

Again, without full names and addresses of the individuals in question how can the authorities question them and possibly investigate their claims?

While describing the events Egypt witnessed in 2013, the writer got trapped in using contradictory descriptions; while the writer once stated that millions of Egyptians demanded Morsi’s removal, she later described his removal as a “coup”, and astonishingly in the same sentence, she happened to contradict herself by saying that this “coup” had “mass support”.

How could the removal of a sitting president by the army, with mass public approval, be considered a "coup"?

The esteemed Cambridge Dictionary defines "coup" as the "sudden illegal, often violent, taking of government power, especially by part of an army:"

There was nothing violent about Morsi's removal. The disturbances afterwards were principally the work of terrorist Brotherhood supporters trying to reverse the will of the people. Yes it was sudden. Technically it might have been illegal in that it was counter to the Constitution. But the population approved....by mass acclaim...as shown on TV. So there you have it. It wasn't a coup. The author is guilty of using inappropriate semantics.

I think the UK Ambassador to Egypt should issue a full apology for this disgraceful slur on Egypt's reputation and demand that his superiors in London take appropriate action against the BBC.

There seems to be a bit of Pot and Kettle there Newc. Especially the statement Egypt always fully investigates, they may do but fully no! and its always this person and that person has been suspended or charged but never names and address's. Just seems to be a war of words and claims by 2 sides who do not get on, or one side reporting and the other side on the defensive or whatever!!

newcastle wrote:Irony can be a powerful tool in rhetoric....but it goes over the head of some people

Newcastle. I think you missed an issue. Rare for you.

The Infallible SIS or another related writer of fiction said that the The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom was a terrorist organization. I'm sure they are right but the 10 million bureaucrats have failed to take the 'necessary' action to proscribe it. Also no one that I'm aware who is associated with it has been charged with terrorist offenses (very odd if they are a terrorist organization) - although some have been rounded up on unrelated/didn't like the government issues. This organization is not on any western terrorist lists, INTERPOL, EUROPOL, not on any UN list nor is it on any list of any Gulf country, Saudi Arabia nor Sudan. These countries must be stone age idiots when compared with civilized high tech/state of the art Egypt. The whole world is lagging whilst Egypt leads.

Someone needs to come to work from their other part-time job or wake up at their desk to do the legal documents.

Even when/if they do the legal paper work (when did anyone worry about that) the statement by them to the BBC would have been given when they were a not illegal (but loathed by the female geriatric security advisor to the President who hates NGO's less than she is a hated senile person) registered organization. A correct legal interpretation is that there was nothing illegal done by them at the time but I live in hope that Egyptian lawyers and judges understand basic legal concepts about timing,near universally accepted in civilized countries - but maybe not in some places.

For the one thousandth time you wonder what idiot is putting together Egyptian press releases. They lack imagination, common sense, consistency and attention to detail. Wonder where they were/are educated/employed? Their boss urgently needs a neurologist.

A sensible point. The Brotherhood is a proscribed terrorist organization in Egypt and the Government states it is responsible for many hundreds of dead and is a blood thirsty and blood curdling radical Islamist organization. No other country agrees with Egypt - please correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm certain of is that no European country, including the UK, nor the US, Turkey nor Australia agrees with the compelling and persuasive Egyptian arguments. Thousands of Western days have been spent in analyzing this 'threat'. Someone is right and someone is wrong - what is the betting. It also tells you a lot about how other countries listen to or believe Egypt. I think that is clear.

The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom....you're right Hafiz. Remiss of me not to mention this shadowy outfit..

Mohamed Lotfi, their Executive Director, had his passport confiscated in 2015 to stop him spreading vile calumnies about Egypt abroad.

Goodness knows why he and his subversive operation have not been rounded up. I see their Facebook page has been taken down and the Website, whilst still live, emasculated as far as "who they are" and "contact us" details are concerned. Perhaps the plan is to devote their future energies to the rights and freedoms of the many stray cats and dogs that blight the streets of Egypt. At least that would give them some purpose rather than inventing stories to tarnish Egypt's image.

Now they have been talking to the vile BBC, expect further action soon.

Its over for the next few years. All the worlds 5 star newspapers and TV stations have the same view. A consultant on Stg5000 a day would say anything you do is not going to change these people in short term and probably not much medium term. Him or her would say don't fight back on what is said in this Western mass opinion media - use your incredibly expensive genius diplomats to 'manage' elite overseas opinion and do that with facts and frank arguments not photos of the Pyramids, presentations by the worlds largest Egyptological ego or standard, implausible Egyptian rhetorical flourishes.

He might say that management of the international media in Cairo is disastrous. Its aggressive or worse and most of the interface is with an Egyptian official with an IQ of 80. I will bet that Cairo don't even have a forward program of positive stories (with cars and local specialists when you get there etc) to be fed to for internationals - except another Presidential/Minister event with no visuals (they all look like unburied paralyzed mummies) and a booring speech written by an unimaginative illiterate. The Presidents latest spokesman would be fired in any other country for a slow, inflexible and unimaginative mind and no natural charm. I'm sure he has a good military history of many victorious battles and this is all that matters.

The problem is their overseas diplomats are useless. They don't have the skills, imagination or enterprise to take The Times out to lunch and give them a package on the good things backed with stats and examples. They do go to lunch and bars but don't get any outcomes. We know this for certain because 100 Egyptian staff in London have not got a single positive story in the 15 newspapers and 100 magazines or TV in 6 months - I think it might be closer to 12. What are they doing?

There are lots of other things the Stg person would say - none would be listened to.

A related matter is managing US opinion. Its a bit unclear what they are doing but clear that its attracting attention, costing a wallop, there is infighting and, as usual Egypt chooses a disaster to help them. In short terms the government/Foreign Ministry has hired a lobbying firm/PR firm (its not clear) to manage relationships in Washington and possibly media. Its a standard firm probably costing $10=20 million a year. If it has media its failed.

Secondly the Army/Egyptian Security Service/President (its very unclear) have hired another firm to manage relationships in Washington and maybe the media. This firm is a high risk business. It has high risk clients and tends to do its business with force. No one seems to respect or even trust it. Who in Washington is managing it is not clear. Budget probably $10-20 million a year.

When this story emerged about 12-18 months ago my recollection was that the Washington Post saw this as clear evidence of chaos and hard fisted competition in the government. They had no names. I think their view was that no sensible country would use the second firm.I think the Washington post believed that there was unpleasant tension between the two groups of Egyptians.

My guess is that there is a hard fisted and hard hearted group, probably led by the vile Mrs Faiza Abou el-Naga, National Security Advisor to the President is part of the more aggressive consultancy. The Washington Post thinks its the army with the second group but the vile one is very close to the army. Who knows.

I find it interesting that Egypt shows no interest in UK opinion (which might be the second largest international investor if you believed Egyptian stats) and Europe. They don't seem to care that Turkey hates them, as do Sudan and Ethiopia and relations with Saudi are at a 50 year low because of the Crown Prince. Relations with the following neighbors are 'non-active' or asleep: Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Chad, Algeria. Is it me or is the whole Foreign Affairs portfolio dysfunctional. Maybe the Minister is dysfunctional. The Wikileaks say his western colleagues think he is.

The Stg person would also say your African and Middle East friends don't care, Russia likes blood and prisons as does China, Taken together these countries are 80-90% of business. Try to do a deal over al Jazeera (that hates current Egyptian circumstances). Why worry.

I totally agree 100% with the man holding the AK47, whatever he says I agree with.
Who really gives a flying-duck, bend your knee, pay penance else you are just another number.
I 'holiday in a Country that is not the UK, I am happy with that else I am a fool.
Ps: Any new news on our 'drug-mule from Hull ? 'bet she has shed a few pounds, and not before time....

Al Ahram has now gone spastic or is it manic on the BBC stuff.It has 5/6 hysterical stories whereas a sane government would just ignore it and definitely not expose their domestic population to the street brawl which draws attention the BBC accusations. They (al Ahram and the State Security Service) fail media management 101 - if they ever studied it. http://english.ahram.org.eg/

We all know that the State Security denials lack logic, evidence and usually basic English (700 staff do this) and that their poor delivery is a big part of why Egypt's image is so poor. These hundreds of highly paid bureaucrats/army officers are really bad at their job - it could be worse but I can't think of any country so inept. Even the Russians under Stalin were plausible - to the foolish.

Whats interesting given their invincible, undefeated military training is how slow they are. I thought these valiant, victorious, heroic military types were quick - assuming they were awake at work. Because they are slow and inept you wonder, or not, about their Ministerial masters and you think that if the slim visible bits are not good is the rest of the iceberg any better in terms of logic, sense or evidence.

So the quality is no good and they are really late.

God. A good New York or London firm could do so much better. Unusually for Egypt their New York staff would work 6 days a week and 10-12 hours a day. The staff would also have a brain and no bribes.

There are dozens of good Egypt stories that the New Yorkers would intersperse with the bad ones to divert attention and confuse matters. All you need is energy and enterprise and Stg10 million a year budget for 50 staff to solve your problems.

I suspect that the undetected problem in Egyptian media is not the bad stories but the staff handling Egypt's image. The worst problem is the Egyptian bureaucracy. Wasn't it always thus in scores of other cases.

Unlike all the UN projects which require Egyptian staff and then always regret it, I think the New Yorkers should demand complete western staff.

Are you on about Game of Thrones Dr when you say Ben Da Knee, or just commenting on the s---e thats flying about Egypt these days leading up to the election where at the last one the people of Egypt came first.

Newcastle. A small point to support the BBC.

There is now a careful detailed book that 'proves' the Army ran the student/general protests and the mad petition with 17 million signatures - which I ridiculed at the time - and that large amounts of army/taxpayers money and manpower was used to fake this whole thing to undermine and get rid of Morsi and have the army replace him.

The review in the Washington Post is by an academic from the prestigious Kings College - made a better place by being under the management of an Australian Vice Chancellor - whom I know. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... b23e4ba8ef

Its reasonable to assume that this has been known for years by all major countries. Its even possible that the army got the nod from the US, Israel and Saudi before it moved.

It is absolutely clear that Morsi was undermined and got rid of according to an expensive plan and that he was not removed by the people.