On her Sunday, March 6, 2016, news program titled Akhbar El Qahira, TV host, Azza El-Hennawy waged a blatant war on President El Sisi. When the episode aired, it instantly went viral. I decided to watch. Here is my take.
In a bizarre and erratic 54-minute rant against the president punctuated with long reading spells, Azza El-Hennawy went on and on. Since the program’s objective was to go over the news, El Hennawy read the news from its original scripts. Not bothering to provide the reader with a abbreviated version, she kept reading out loud, looking down at the script, and easily losing the interest of her audience. Most of the time she didn’t even ask her guest to shed light on the issues but rambled on. From that perspective, hardly anyone could have possibly gained much from what she was presenting.
But in addition to reading excerpts loudly, her main focus was to cast a grim outlook on where Egypt was heading and on El Sisi as an incapable leader.
Her guest, journalist Osama Shehata, of El Mesaa’ newspaper, in the face of her attack, was on the defensive. At one point, Shehata, though respectful till the last minute, told her that she took over the whole episode while not giving him enough chance to respond. She then was willing to go off the air.
To see if Azza El-Hennawy's attitude was appropriate or not, here is a summary of some of what went on in this episode. And here is the episode itself.
El Hennawy criticized, sarcastically, the president for saying he wouldn't run for the presidency and yet running; in this she claimed he is no better than the Brotherhood group who first said they would seek a small percentage of seats in parliament but ended running for all seats and for the presidency.
She had issues with media gags as in the case of top auditor Hesham Geneina. She criticized El-Sisi for saying that Egypt looks forward to expanding cooperation with the African Development Bank (ADB) inferring that nothing had been accomplished so far.
She questioned Egypt’s need to borrow so many billions and was dubious about where the monies ended. She said that many of the promises made were lies and referred to the hikes in prices that were hitting the poverty stricken hard.
As though corruption is a tap that can be easily shut, she suggested abolishing corruption, instead of borrowing billions and asking Egyptians to donate. She attacked the government for evading paying taxes, go figure what that means exactly, and for the reconciliation law that may cancel conviction if the lawbreaker returns the illegal gains. She blatantly said that the parliament was brought about by the Security Apparatus and Intelligence. Then she turned her rant on the conditions in prisons and how devastating it was for prisoners and their families.
She also said that the situation in Egypt was so grim that children don’t like their country, that many adults want to leave Egypt, and that many would prefer any citizenship to the Egyptian one.
But most of all she was against the President. She said that it was Egyptians who were working not the government nor the president, that the president has to work first before he asks Egyptians to do so, that his latest speech was similar to Hitler’s, pointing her arm outwards in a Hitler allegiance fashion and declaring the speech “an announcement of dictatorship.” Finally she ended on the note that it is almost two years since the president was elected and nothing was accomplished. Clearly she had compiled an agenda packed with twisted truths and flagrant lies.
Freedom of speech is a right on any topic and on any issue, but you can be libel if you are slanderous, erroneous, or deceptive. Remember: truth is an absolute defence in libel claims. Calling someone a liar, a traitor, or an incompetent leader is not good enough; one has to prove that he or she is indeed so.
Two aspects seem to be unfolding: a committee was established by ERTU, Egyptian Radio and Television Union, to look into whether El Hennawy crossed boundaries and reported objectively. She will face dismissal if found guilty. The second is the complaint that was filed by Lawyer Samir Sabry accusing El Hennawy of implementing an agenda to attack the Egyptian state and its president… to defame the state internally and internationally…and to incite people against the president by questioning his achievements.
As for social media, it reacted in a fashion similar to El Hennawy’s—name labelling with no concrete facts. She has been considered a Muslim Brotherhood follower and a fat TV host that should be disqualified from appearing on state television.
As much as I find El Hennawy's rant uncivilized, self-proclaiming, befuddling, and biased, I am highly against taking this matter to court. It would be unwise to add another crime to the many that behoove Egyptians courts today such as contempt of religions, violating public modesty, or, now, insulting the president.
As for Azza El-Hennawy herself, I’ll leave it up to you to decide if she is libel or not.
When a professional individual uses his/her platform in such personalized manned, I don't care what it's called, he/ she needs to be eliminated. Court or not ya Azza as we say in Arabic will neither serve us forward nor backward, we are still "viewed" by the haters as in breach of rights and that will not change overnigh but at least we can quell such media outbursts
Posted by: Alia Minaissy | 03/10/2016 at 09:20 PM
Still, we don't need to add another discriminatory charge to the list we already have.
As for Azza El-Hennawy, I agree with you that she utilized her platform in an unbecoming fashion. It looks as though she has already been dismissed. Good enough for me.
Posted by: azza radwan sedky | 03/10/2016 at 09:24 PM