Egypt wants to ban ‘Brotherhood’ channels
February 11, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Egypt is asking European broadcasters to cease carrying what it considers to be politically contentious channels.
In particular Egypt’s Foreign Minister Samih Shukri met with French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on the side-lines of last weekend’s Munich Security Conference.
Shukri underlined the importance of banning the transmission of the satellite channels affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) organisation. Those channels are inciting violence and terrorism, the Egyptian top diplomat reportedly stressed.
Egypt’s French ambassador, in a statement, said it had approached France’s CSA media regulator and asked that channels which broadcast what the embassy described as “hatred” be closed. According to French law, the regulator is entitled to stop broadcast of TV channels, if it is proved to incite hatred and violence and violate human dignity.
Some of the channels in question broadcast from Europe, including France and the UK, and are uplinked to either Eutelsat or Nilesat’s satellites for re-broadcast over the MENA region.