Al-Sisi overthrows his prominent pro-regime media professionals

The fact that Lamis Elhadidy has been prevented from presenting her TV programs indicates a new direction the Egyptian media platforms are taking. This would be limited to the regime’s loyalists and also move towards the General Intelligence Directorate’s full control over these platforms.

Egyptian media sources revealed this plan to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, which in turn described it as, “the second phase of the restructuring of the Egyptian media.” The source confirmed that the General Intelligence Directorate, headed by Major Gen. Abbas Kamel, has taken over the shares of various media groups.

The Directorate took over most of the shares of the Future Group Holding, which was owned by the businessman close to the ruling regime, Mohammed Al-Ameen. The group holds all the TV channels of CBC, where Lamis Elhadidy used to present her TV show Hona Al’asema, in addition to ElWatan News newspaper, according to the sources.

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Elhadidy was prevented from presenting her show because she failed to convince the Intelligence director to keep her program. She repeatedly tried to meet him to agree on the version of the new season of the show, but all her attempts were in vain, according to the Egyptian media sources.

Nevertheless, Elhadidy succeeded in meeting some influential figures close to Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi to convince them to carry out her media work, which is supervised by the Intelligence Directorate and based on the “political and economic” framework.

However, the figures told her that the show “needs” to focus on the “social, youth and information” framework, to promote the “reformist government’s initiatives” and the government’s focus on providing “successful examples” of young people’s preparation for leadership and other projects that Al-Sisi claims to be “huge” and “reformist.”

The sources expected that the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate is planning to stop the broadcasting of the CBC TV channel and CBC Extra, and to only keep CBC drama and CBC Sofra (for cooking).

The case of Elhadidy’s prevention clearly shows that despite the support the media professionals of the overthrown President Hosni Mubarak have provided for Al-Sisi after the 2013 coup and the cooperation with his security authorities from that period until today to promote him, he still believes that they are still loyal to Mubarak.

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