Cairo June 10, 2012

 With a mixture of surprise and indignation, ANHRI followed the advertising campaign aired on Egyptian TV channels that warn Egyptian youth from dealing or talking with foreigners under the pretext of “preserving the secrets of Egypt.” “Broadcasting this kind of ads bring to mind Adolf Hitler media which was run by Goebbels who was famous for his crude lies and malicious methods to control the mind of the masses through the media,” said ANHRI.

 The Egyptian television has surprised viewers by bradcasting ads that contain scenes of someone with foreign features entering a coffee shop  and socializing with a group of youth who were talking about the crisises the country is going through under the military rule and one of the youth was talking about a conspiracy against the army, the commentary audio was warning the viewers from dealing with strangers or talking to them in any political matter and it was even mocking what is known about Egyptians from honoring guests!

 The ad suggests to the viewer that every foreign in Egypt has only one purpose which is spying and accessing information of citizens to give it to other countries.

Another ad for a guy entering his personal information over a website to look for a job, and the same commentary audio calls for not sharing information over the net to avoid any fake websites designed to gather information to use against Egypt.

 “The lack of political will to reform the Egyptian media especially the official one, and the impunity of some media professional during the revolution for their hate speech against foreigners added to overlooking the incitement against Christians in Maspero incident resulted in such a hate speech” said ANHRI.

ANHRI warns from the consequences of the Intelligence services methods return through exaggerating and linking everything to conspiracy theories and through the escalating hate speech against foreigners and also Egyptians with foreign features since January uprising and with an official blessing from military rulers.

 As a result of such inciting speeches, some citizens in Shubra area in Cairo arrested the Slovenian Ambassador while taking some photos and handed him over to the police forces as they were skeptical because of his foreign features in December last year.

 “The real motive behind this shoddy propaganda is to stigmatize revolutionaries and activists as spies for other countries, to gag citizens and to intimidate the revolutions friends from outside who provided much of the help during the revolution and even encouraged the return of tourism “ added ANHRI.

 “Preventing citizens from following up with the public affairs and limiting their interest in politics also curtailing the growing role of the Internet in the Egyptian revolution is to eliminate the political opponents . All these are the goals of the official media and some private media channels they work on since the ousting of the dictator Mubarak using the worst methods in order to restore a state where everything was in favor of the ruling minority,” said ANHRI.

 ANHRI denounces these ads and describe them as “full of hatred and are contrary to all the teaching and accepted professional press values” and demands a punishment for whoever asked for these ads and broad casted them.

 ANHRI is alarmed and seriously concerned with the continued policy of using the TV as a method to defame the revolution youth and intimidating citizens from foreign agendas and warning them from exchanging information over the Internet that contributed mainly to the outbreak of the January Uprising and organizing and gathering the crowd.