Egyptian Christian TV targeted by the government

Source:
EvangelicalFocus
Date of source:
14 Oct 2015

On 10th October, The Cairo studios of Christian satellite broadcaster SAT-7 were raided by officers from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology's Censorship Department, who accused it of operating without the necessary licences. The officers presented a search warrant and Items of equipment including cameras and computers used for editing were confiscated.

 

Office director, Farid Samir, faces charges relating to incorrect registration of a TV channel, failure to hold licences for certain editing activities and failure to comply with regulations concerning live streaming of broadcasts on the internet.

 

According to SAT-7, based in Cyprus, the Egypt office is a programme production facility and not a satellite broadcast centre and thus that the charges are "based on a lack of and/or incorrect information."

 

SAT-7's activities in Egypt are severely disrupted, though broadcasts to Egypt are continuing from Beirut. The police will hold the confiscated equipment pending a final decision. SAT-7 emphasises that one of its key aims is to promote peaceful co-existence in the Middle East through fostering bridges of understanding between different faith communities.

 

Christians face continual pressure from Muslim hard-liners, though the country's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has strongly urged tolerance and religious freedom.

 

Cornelis Hulsman: SAT-7 is a Christian satellite TV station with its main office in Cyprus and offices in Egypt and Lebanon. Their key aim is fostering bridges of understanding between different faith communities? It is more presenting a Christian message whereby they seek to avoid critique on Islam as one finds with some other channels. The title "Egyptian Christian TV targeted by the government" is exaggerated. Blaming legal problems on"the government" is going too far. Also blaming the charges on “Muslim hard-liners” is an easy claim to make. For a better understanding one would need to dig into the charges made, the answer of SAT-7 as well as the history of SAT-7 in Egypt that has not always been without problems. One would need to analyse those previous experiences for a better understanding of what is happening today to SAT-7 in Egypt. 

Add new comment

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <b> <br>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.