Category Archives: Egypt

Egyptian Reporter is Detained

Posted on December 9, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The Egyptian constitution claims that it has a free media system, however this is not the case because there have been many situations in the past going against what a free media system stands for. Reporters know not to report on controversial issues for the fear of getting in trouble. Recently, a Coptic Christian activist and journalist was arrested on suspicion of instigating religious strife.  A Coptic Christian describes someone who is a member of The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which is the largest Christian church in Egypt and all of the Middle East. The most practiced religion in Egypt is Islam so this reporter was creating some red flags for authorities from his religious standpoint alone.

BishoyArmia

The reporter’s name is Bishoy Armia and he is described as the most well known person from his nation to publicly convert from Islam to Christianity. It is rumored that he was working for a US-based Christian television station. When he was arrested, sources say that he had a camera and four flash drives in his possession. The reason authorities gave for arresting him was that Armia was supposedly taking footage back to the United States to portray the image that there is violence against Christians in Egypt. He was taken to jail and was order a two-week detainment for questioning. Authorities claim that the reporter took footage of Christian churches being torched back in August.  Although the authorities have claimed they arrested him for creating religious strife, many citizens think that it has more to do with him changing his religion. Many people fear for Armia’s safety and are certain that he will be beaten and tortured during his detainment.

It seems that the culture in Egypt is very attached to its Islamic roots and feels threatened by people who test the boundaries. Whether this man is being persecuted in Egypt due to what he was reporting on or what his religious beliefs are, it is definitely interesting and sad to learn about.

Sources:

http://www.mfs-theothernews.com/2013/12/noted-christian-convert-in-egypt-bishoy.html

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Dec-06/240154-egypt-detains-coptic-christian-reporter-state-media.ashx#axzz2n2H5Yy00

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Egypt and Morocco among Top 5 Tweeting Nations in Africa

Posted on December 7, 2013 by | 12 comments

How Africa Tweets

In a recent study done by the blog Portland, Egypt and Morocco ranked 4th and 5th, respectively, in Africa for number of twitter users. Egypt tallied 1,214,000 tweeters, while Morocco recorded 745,000. In all of Africa, 68% of people said they used twitter primarily to monitor news and events in their region. In contrast to much of the West, however, most of those who use twitter in Africa are in their twenties. This highlights the overriding youth moment in media technology that is sweeping across much of Northern Africa.

As social media becomes a bigger and bigger platform for dialogue to take place, young adults throughout Northern Africa are using there mobile phones as a way to communicate with the rest of the world. Adding to this young average age is the surprising discovery only a very small percent of public figures in North Africa use twitter. Those who do, however, have attracted very large followings, as the activists of North Africa hope to begin to use twitter as a means to engage in dialogue with their regions most influential leaders. As twitter has begun to play a larger and larger role in the liberation of Egypt and other North African countries, Africans are beginning to flock by the masses to the social media network as a means to more closely connect the people of Africa and to eventually progress the continent further into the digital age.

Sources:

http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2012/02/25246/morocco-5th-most-active-twitter-user-in-africa/

http://www.portland-communications.com/publications/the-quarterly-issue-6/how-africa-tweets/

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Posted in Egypt, Media Access, Morocco

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Egypt: The growing role of Twitter

Posted on December 1, 2013 by | 12 comments

It was not too long ago that Egyptians saw their access to twitter and Facebook blocked under the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Throughout the civil unrest of 2011 and 2012, Mubarak revoked access to Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to prevent social media from stimulating unrest, even going so far as to restrict blackberry internet aces throughout the country. Much has changed in the years following, as access to social media in Egypt has grown, allowing coverage of recent revolts to go viral across the Internet, perhaps most prominently through Twitter.

In the summer on 2013, Twitter “coverage” of the strife in Egypt became so widespread that Twitter began using a “tweet translation” service that allowed users to read highlighted tweets by notable Egyptian accounts in the users own language. Twitter ran the tweets through the @Egypt2013 account, which had been created to streamline the highly demanded coverage of Egypt.

Among the Egyptian accounts included in the translation service belong to Egyptian President Muhammed Morsi (@MuhammedMorsi). Unlike his predecessors, Morsi supported the use of Twitter, and often used the social media site as a tool to connect to Egypt’s youth. In April of 2013, Morsi went so far as to use Twitter to respond to criticism of his lack of democratic reforms. Through a tweet on the Egyptian Presidency’s twitter, Morsi offered to answer question from twitter users sent to his personal account.

Muhammed Morsi's twitter account

Muhammed Morsi’s twitter account

In just a few years, Egyptian government moved from imposing heavy restrictions on social media to embracing those same social media sites as a means to communicate with citizens. Despite government efforts to increase social media usage in Egypt, on 35% of the population have Internet access and an even smaller percentage (14.5) use social media.

 

Sources:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/10/17693090-egypts-morsi-uses-twitter-to-talk-to-youth

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/follow-egypt-unrest-using-experimental-twitter-translator-6C10551493

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm

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