AHRAMONLINE (Egypt), AFP, THE GUARDIAN (UK)
CAIRO — After being accused of “inciting hatred” against Coptic Christians and “undermining national unity,” the Islamist Al-Hafez TV channel was ordered by a Cairo administrative court to be closed permanently, according to the Egyptian Ahramonline news website.
The station, which was among several to be taken temporarily off the air after former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s overthrow, has been notorious for its inflammatory rhetoric against Christians and non-Islamist figures, whether in the opposition or general public, Ahramonline reports.
This decision comes a day after Egypt expelled three foreign journalists working as freelancers for Al-Jazeera. They had carried appeals from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood leaders to stage protests against the army-backed government.
The Guardian reports that for the past seven weeks, the Egyptian government has been accused of jamming the signal of Al-Jazeera, and blocking the broadcaster from sending raw TV feeds on the Egyptian crisis to other broadcasters.
Photo: Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMA
