CAIRO, Oct 28 — A satirist’s spoof of Egypt’s political upheaval has touched a raw nerve in the riven nation, drawing allegations he ridiculed the military that toppled a widely despised Islamist president.
Bassem Youssef, who had been off-air since favoured targets President Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood were pushed from power in July, returned last week with his Al Bernameg programme, poking fun at the military-worship that’s gripped the country in his absence. Defence Minister Abdelfatah al-Seesi, who removed Mursi from office, has achieved iconic status in Egypt, making irreverence toward him a likely magnet for trouble.
CBC, the private station that airs the programme, said most of the feedback it got from viewers disapproved of portions of the show broadcast on Friday. While endorsing media freedom, CBC “is committed to not using phrases, innuendo or scenes that may lead to a mockery of national sentiment or symbols of the Egyptian state”, the station’s board of directors said in a statement read by an anchor at prime time on Saturday.
Politicians and a group identifying itself as the “Al- Seesi for President” campaign said they filed complaints against Youssef with the prosecutor-general’s office, accusing him of defaming the country and its defence chief. The legal adviser of the Ahrar Party, Mahmoud Bastaweesy, accused Youssef in a complaint of “adopting the ideologies of the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood and challenging the legitimacy” of the revolt against Mursi, according to an e-mailed statement.
In an editorial before the show, Youssef decried what he called efforts by both pro-military and pro-Brotherhood camps to vilify opponents. The programme parodied both groups.
Military worship
Youssef, a cardiac surgeon turned comedian, lampooned the adulation of al-Seesi fans, while stopping short of criticising the general himself.
“After the revolution we got a president who thought we were idiots, so the people decided to revolt,” Youssef sang with his team to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”.
The parody, which he characterised as an account of recent events in Egypt tailored for children, ends with one of the performers yelling, “Al-Seesi has battled terrorism and that’s why a coup took place”. That sentence drew an official complaint to the prosecutor-general’s office yesterday from politician Ahmed el-Fadaly, who accused Youssef of defaming the country by using the word “coup” in his show.
Defenders of the military say no coup took place because Mursi’s overthrow was an expression of the people’s will. Mursi’s supporters, who deny allegations that Mursi put the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda before the country’s needs, call his ouster a coup.
‘Dallying woman’
El-Fadaly also complained about a sketch in the show in which he accused Youssef of portraying Egypt as a “dallying woman who betrays her husband with military men”.
Youssef, who was sued in March by Mursi supporters over allegations he insulted him and Islam, ended his show saying: “I am not with those who attacked us and called us heretics... but we are afraid that fascism in the name of religion gets replaced with fascism in the name of nationalism and national security.”
Hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been killed by security forces, and others have been detained since Mursi was removed. — Bloomberg
