Journalists on Tuesday accused the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) of inciting Egyptians against revolutionaries and media outlets reporting on the army's violent behavior over the last few days.
Major General Adel Emara, a member of the SCAF, said in a press conference Monday that some media sources are inciting people "to bring down the state, not only the regime."
At a protest outside the Journalists Syndicate Sunday, journalists and media professionals argued with passersby, who accused the media of twisting the truth and featuring a group of thugs as revolutionaries.
“I cannot describe those who oppose our protest as thugs or infiltrators, but I can assure you that there is something strange about how they gathered all of a sudden,” Al-Fagr newspaper Editor-in-Chief Adel Hammouda told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday.
Hammouda added that some government officials feared the protest and sought to ruin it by injecting unidentified people to turn nearby citizens against it.
Mohamed Abdel Qoddous, a member of the Journalists Syndicate council who participated in the protest, said some elements encouraged nearby citizens to argue with the protesters.
The Egyptian street wants stability, Abdel Qoddous added, saying that SCAF is using this card to arouse anger against protesters, portraying them as a group that wants to prevent stability from returning to Egypt.
The attacks on media professionals should be understood in the context of recent events, said Bahey Eddin Hassan, the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. The state-run media has incited against revolutionaries by arousing the sympathy of impressionable citizens, he said.
Hassan added that the independent media appears to be under immense pressure, since many media figures known for their integrity are implicitly taking the side of the SCAF in the recent clashes.
Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm
