“I want to tell you that we’ve been concerned with controlling the media from the very first day the army took over power in 2011,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is heard saying in an October 2013 leaked video.
“Tell me how do you suggest I terrorize them?” Sisi asked one of his officers. Three and a half years into power after the toppling of President Mohammed Morsi and taking charge of the country, Sisi’s Egypt is witnessing the harshest crackdown in the 200-year history of Egyptian media. Repression, destruction of equipment, imprisonment and even death surround the profession.