اتحاد "إذاعات أوروبا" ينتقد تغطية التليفزيون المصرى لأحداث ماسبيرو

اتحاد "إذاعات أوروبا" ينتقد تغطية التليفزيون المصرى لأحداث ماسبيرو

 الجمعة، 21 أكتوبر 2011  جنيف (أ. ف. ب)

أعرب اتحاد الإذاعات والتليفزيونات الأوروبية اليوم، الجمعة، عن استيائه من تغطية التليفزيون المصرى الرسمى للاشتباكات الطائفية التى جرت مؤخرا، وأسفرت عن مقتل نحو 25 شخصا، حيث وصف التغطية بأنها افتقرت إلى الحيادية. وقال الاتحاد إن "مقدمى البرامج بالاتحاد المصرى للإذاعة والتلفزيون لا يقومون بتغطية الأحداث بشكل مستقل ومحايد، ويقول البعض إن التليفزيون شجع مشاهديه على الخروج إلى صف الجيش".  وفى رسالته للتليفزيون المصرى، قال رئيس اتحاد الإذاعات الأوروبية ومديره العام، إن عضوية هذا الاتحاد "تنطوى على التزام بالتغطية الحيادية بما يخدم كافة أبناء المجتمع، ومن بينها الأقليات".

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Statement of the Free Media People around Maspero Events We, men and women working in the Egyptian Radio & TV Union (Maspero), repudiate through this statement the media performance practiced by the Ministry of Information since the Revolution till now. Unfortunately, we see the governmental information institution affected through the passing years by the methodological corruption and poor administration, prevailed in all agencies and institutions of the state and delivered us to that deteriorated professional level.
When the glory January revolution broke down and Egyptians sacrificed their blood for dignity and honor, we thought it will be reflected on Maspero and that its poor performance will change after the revolution, to be more professional and that it will be the voice of people with its different categories. Unfortunately, for our surprise, it was the opposite. Maspero followed the same path as being a tendentious trumpet aims at twisting facts, lying and misinforming to convey one message with the aim of beautifying the ruler even if he is unfair. When dealing with the demonstrations of Copts, publicized in media as Maspero Events, the state media descended to the lowest level of professionalism. Our visual and audio media has presented a shocking image of the deceiving and twisting facts media, the media that adds fuel to the fire of sectarian division among the sons of one nation; it even presented a unilateral and a tendentious media viewpoint through stating that three soldiers from the Armed Forces have been killed and neglected that 20 demonstrators have been killed. This action, no doubts, indicates bias to one party, unprofessionalism, provoking people against the Christian demonstrators by stating that "the Great Egyptian Army which fought for Egypt faces killing at the hands of some of the nation's sons not at the hands of Israelis" in the words of the announcer who covered the Events. This, in turn, has outraged the citizens who went out to assault their fellow citizens, break the law, riot and even kill; a criminal action.
This deteriorated performance and provoking language used by the governmental media at Maspero led to the killing of revolutionaries in January and the ones responsible for that were Anas el-Fiqy and Abdel-Lateef el-Minawy. Again it caused the killing of 25 innocent citizens on 09/10 before Maspero.
As we repudiate this corrupt and provoking media, we demand to free Maspero, as happened in all sectors in Egypt. We also demand to hold for account all responsible for this media farce that was likely to push Egypt into a real catastrophe. Our demands therefore are briefed as follows:
1. Deposing the minister of information, Osama Heikal, not only for being responsible for what happened, but also for not having the expertise and qualifications of the post. We do not need a Minister even if he has a loyal friendly relationship with the Council as he worked for 18 years as a military correspondent of the Ministry of Defense in Al-Wafd news paper. Should the Council wants to gift him, it would appoint him in one of its military agencies, not to put him at the top of the formal information institution. We hope that this institution regain its pioneering role in that critical moment of Egypt history after the institution lost its professional level by appointing people of confidence not people of expertise and efficiency like Safwat el-Sherief, Anas el-Fiqy and lastly Osamah Heikal.
2. Canceling the Ministry of Information and making it an independent agency (especially after the falsehood of the claim that being a ministry will guarantee for us a budget from the state, which comes as untrue).
3. Cleaning the visual and audio media from all corrupted persons contributing in that action including the editors, broadcasters, directors and to discharge the head of news sector and all those who participated in conveying false and biased image, and all those who worked with the previous regime in a way that becomes difficult for them to work neutrally after the revolution. It is illogical that broadcasters who called for killing revolutionaries describing them as traitors working on foreign agendas to be the presenters of talk Shaw programmes discussing Egypt's future after the revolution.
At the end we ask the Military Council as the interim ruler in the country, to lift hands from the governmental media leaving it perform our duty towards the Egyptian people faithfully and professionally. We are not a tool or the media of the ruler, no longer we are that day; we work for the Egyptian people which gives us our salaries, not "the council" as minister Osama said.
We do not think ourselves tools of repression, misinforming, provoking and pitting the people of one nation against each other; and we will not accept to work in a corrupt system just to earn our living.
Finally, we ask Allah to protect Egypt from all intrigues and machinations carried by its sons, and to cut the throats of liars and machinators for their cunning.