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Egypt sends news editors to military academy for 'training'

An agreement that calls for top editors of Egyptian newspapers and websites to take mandatory training sessions in media and national security at the Nasser Military Academy has stirred controversy.
Journalists gather in front of the Journalists' Syndicate in Cairo on November 19, 2016, to protest against the courts verdict to sentence head of the union and two members to two years in prison.
Egypt's interior minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar

Journalists Syndicate president Yahiya Kallash, Gamal Abd el-Rahim and Khaled Elbalshy were charged in May with sheltering two journalists wanted over protests against the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

Their arrest following a May 1 police raid on

CAIRO — A protocol between Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation and the Nasser Military Academy calls for editors-in-chief of Egyptian newspapers and websites to enroll in mandatory strategic training sessions in media and national security. Former generals who now teach at the academy are giving the lectures. The sessions were announced Feb. 7 by Media Regulation Council Chairman Makram Mohammed Ahmed, stirring controversy among journalists.

A week earlier, on Jan. 31, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had lambasted media figures at the inauguration ceremony of the Zohr gas field at Port Said. He urged them to make certain of the accuracy of the news they report.

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