Tuesday, February 06, 2007

What the ****

Egyptian authorities unveiled last Saturday the arrest of an Egyptian-Canadian man with the charge of spying for the state of Israel as one of a four members spy ring, the other three are Israelis:

High State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi said the Egyptian, Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, had been arrested and charged. The rest of the suspected spy ring, who are in Turkey and Canada, were charged in absentia.

And now to the reason I'm cursing out loud:
Yesterday, on the front page of the largest distributed state controlled daily newspaper Al-ahram we were faced with the following headline " The Spy began the treason by changing his religion!"
As it turned out to be that in 2002, Mohamed el-Attar (the alleged spy) went to a Catholic church in Turkey and converted to Christianity and became Joseph el-Attar.
And to further discredit the guy, the paper states that he is gay, and that was one of the reasons for him to leave Egypt and seek asylum.
Now let's observe for the moment the message the state media is releasing to the mass, the way I see it it is one or more of the following:

- People who convert their religion are now considered as traitors!
- Anyone who converts to Christianity is on the fast track to become a spy.
- Muslims are incapable of committing such act so the guy had to change his religion first.
- Christians are not loyal to their homeland and therefor can not be trusted.
- People who convert to Christianity must be gays!!!

Again, what the ****

Waldorf

8 comments:

Assem said...

i read the thing online it was disgusting. That said, I think it is not out of hate of Egyptian gov and state controled media rather than their poor inability to run campigns, communicate. We just have terrible media in those senses and ar unable to choose and select messages to create propoganda around this terrorist thing.

Statler & Waldorf said...

Memz,

I totally agree that the Egyptian state media is totally screwed and very unprofessional for that matter.
But this time the message is so loud and clear and cannot be missed.
As Egypter said, what the sexuality or religion of the guy has to do with anyhting.
And why the clear link between the conversion of religion and the treason?
And in front page news!!

Waldorf

Assem said...

look, call me in denial but i dont believe the situation is as bad as Egypter and some copts try to make it sound.

http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=47147&r=t

also front page!

Assem said...

and then u read this http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=47139&r=t

and you realize he prob wsnt gay. but just fled because of a wasl amana!

Statler & Waldorf said...

Great, but let me ask is Almasry-Alyoum a state controlled paper? No.
Can we even compare distribution numbers between Al-Ahram, and Almasry? Guess not.
Nonetheless, I totally agree with you that some copts tend to exadurate matters big time whenever any stupid incident occurs

Waldorf

Statler & Waldorf said...

Guys, this is not just this piece of news, in all the egyptian media, they always broadcast this message that finally some one has converted or this person finally found the the right religion.
Memz or Egypeter, you guys have open minded kind of mentality, but what about the average jo (or should I say average hamada)in streets of Egypt when he/she reads this!! he/she will get the message without thinking of it, being Christian is linked to something bad like being spy.

Statler

Assem said...

so a couple of things, i absolutely agree with what you said stat about the average joe or average mo and their perceptions. The question is, is it portrayed this way out of discrimination, bigotry and evil or just plain old stupidity.

As for the comparisons between Al Ahram and Masy al youm are not accurate. the reason is there is no official distribution numbers for state controlled media. this was a huge controversy in the press earlier this past fall,

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