Press advocates say Egypt's media 'persecuted'

TV’s Fatah is accused of inciting Egyptians to violence Egypt’s Public Union of Media Workers has criticised what it has described as “organised intellectual terrorism” against Egyptian television presenters and journalists .Union boss el-Sayed el-Shazly condemned the public prosecution for
“terrorising” Dina Abdel Fatah, host of Egypt’s The People Want talk show, after she broadcast two programmes featuring the Black Bloc.
Shazly alleged that Fatah had been accused of inciting the controversial activist group to sabotage public property and kill civilians in recent clashes outside Cairo’s Ittihadiya presidential palace.
“Featuring the Black Bloc is a matter of freedom of expression,” Shazly claimed, “not incitement.”
The syndicate head revealed his organisation had submitted a formal request to Egypt’s public prosecution to delay investigations into the media presenter for one week.
Journalists’ Union secretary, Gamal Fahmy, also criticised the growing practice of summoning journalists to court, rather than summoning them via the union.
“The press does not have tear gas or armoured vehicles,” Fahmy said. “It has the pen to reveal corruption committed by ruling regimes.”
Equality and Development Party leader Tayseer Fahmy meanwhile claimed the summoning of Fatah represented a form of “systematic terrorism, exercised by the ruling regime” against media professionals.