Hossam el-Hamalawy's personal annotations on this page
Elhamalawy bookmarked
on 2009-11-01
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Our masters prefer us not to tangle with the bad guys as well as good guys. Years ago, a Time magazine reporter in Cairo packed his note-book with facts about the routine Egyptian police torture of prisoners. But the US ambassador in Cairo persuaded the bureau chief to hold off because he understood that Mubarak was going to "crack down" on such abuses. Ho ho! Time didn't run the story and, of course, the abuses got worse. Shortly afterwards, jail guards were forcing Egyptian prisoners to rape each other.
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And nothing has changed. The big Western news agencies which have headquartered their Middle East offices in Cairo are as loath to touch these stories today as they were more than a decade ago. It's just the same in that other friendly Muslim ally of ours, Turkey. But let's start in Cairo. When the "peace process" – remember that tacky phrase? – was about to reach fruition almost 15 years ago, the big wire agencies poured millions into new offices and staffs in Mubarak's gleaming capital of democracy. And what happened? As usual, the Egyptian Mukhabarat security agencies inserted their own lads into the bureaux – or blackmailed Egyptian reporting staff – to spy on the journalistic output. All bureau chiefs in Cairo know who their local spies are. But, of course, they can't dismiss them.
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Nor can they report the news that their "news" agency is supposed to be telling us about. The mere hint of an anti-Mubarak story – I am omitting from this the courageous coverage of the shameful behaviour of the cops in mauling and beating female as well as male protesters during the anti-Mubarak "Enough movement's demonstrations – and the Ministry of Information will be calling in the relevant bureau chief for a chat. Even a formal Egyptian denial won't do you much good. There will be serious consequences if there is a repeat. Closing down the bureau, perhaps, having wasted all those millions on installing the office in the first place?
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Which is why almost all Cairo-datelined coverage of police savagery in Egypt contains only reports on London-issued protests from Amnesty or Human Rights Watch, followed by the necessary Egyptian condemnation of the human rights groups. In other words, the investment in such Western news bureaux has now become more important than the news for which the original investment was made.
This link has been bookmarked by 6 people . It was first bookmarked on 31 Oct 2009, by itxa p.
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Clara Rivas Alonso#mubarak #torture #turkey #egypt #armenia #media
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Amr SolimanAmira Hass was spot on when she said last week that her lifetime women's award was an award for failure. The West Bank correspondent of the Israeli paper Haaretz eloquently explained herself on al-Jazeera's English channel. She received an award for failure, she said, because despite all the facts that she and her journalistic colleagues had explained about Israeli occupation in Palestine, the world still did not understand what occupation meant and still used words like "terror" and "war on terror". Amira was absolutely correct. Most of our Western press and television are as gutless as ever when they have to participate in what Noam Chomsky described as "the manufacture of consent".
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Pakinam Ameri'd like to provide a long comment for this on my blog when i have time ... especially on the local spies bit.
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Our masters prefer us not to tangle with the bad guys as well as good guys. Years ago, a Time magazine reporter in Cairo packed his note-book with facts about the routine Egyptian police torture of prisoners. But the US ambassador in Cairo persuaded the bureau chief to hold off because he understood that Mubarak was going to "crack down" on such abuses. Ho ho! Time didn't run the story and, of course, the abuses got worse. Shortly afterwards, jail guards were forcing Egyptian prisoners to rape each other.
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And nothing has changed. The big Western news agencies which have headquartered their Middle East offices in Cairo are as loath to touch these stories today as they were more than a decade ago. It's just the same in that other friendly Muslim ally of ours, Turkey. But let's start in Cairo. When the "peace process" – remember that tacky phrase? – was about to reach fruition almost 15 years ago, the big wire agencies poured millions into new offices and staffs in Mubarak's gleaming capital of democracy. And what happened? As usual, the Egyptian Mukhabarat security agencies inserted their own lads into the bureaux – or blackmailed Egyptian reporting staff – to spy on the journalistic output. All bureau chiefs in Cairo know who their local spies are. But, of course, they can't dismiss them.
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All bureau chiefs in Cairo know who their local spies are.
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