Last night’s talk shows for Monday, 11 November 2019
Human rights was topic du jour on the airwaves last night as UN Human Rights Council meets in Geneva: A government delegation landed in Geneva yesterday for Egypt’s Universal Periodic Review with the UN Human Rights Council, which is set to take place on Wednesday. Egypt will present three documents during the meeting, one compiled by the government, one from information contained in reports by independent human rights groups, and another by the National Human Rights Council. The reports will outline actions taken to improve the human rights situation in the country, and will serve as the basis for review. The visit comes just weeks after the council called on the government to release thousands of people detained in the wake of the protests last month. Al Kahera Alaan’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 22:11) took note.
El Hadidi spoke to the head of the Forum for Development and Human Rights, Saeed Abdel Hafez, who outlined the review process and dismissed a UN report out on Friday alleging that former President Mohamed Morsi’s main cause of death was poor prison conditions. He said Egyptian authorities will present evidence and prison records during the Geneva meeting to prove otherwise. We note the UN report on Morsi in this morning’s Egypt in the News, below.
SIS distributes video of prison tour and interviews: The State Information Service was out with a video yesterday (watch, runtime: 16:10) documenting a visit by prosecutors to the Tora Prison complex to interview inmates, who spoke of minor inconveniences and provided little evidence of human rights violations, contrasting markedly with multiple reports by the UN and rights group that allege abuse of political prisoners. Al Hayah Al Youm’s Lobna Assal took not and aired a few minutes of the video (watch, runtime: 10:20). The state’s prisons authority will organize meetings soon with foreign correspondents and journalists to follow up on the situation, Egyptian Press Syndicate head Diaa Rashwan told El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 9:14).
El Almaneya out for good: We haven’t seen Egyptians this happy since World Cup qualifiers. The Cairo Economic Court has slapped an unnamed pest control company — which we take is the infamous “El Sherka El Almaneya” — with an EGP 900k fine, Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary reports (watch, runtime: 12:56). The business was charged with setting up unlicensed virtual networks and spamming unsolicited messages to personal phone numbers obtained illegally. The fine came under the Cyber Crimes Act, which was signed into law last year. The act contains provisions to protect consumer privacy, as well as grant the government widespread oversight on internet activity.
Tragic death of Haitham Zaki: Egyptian actor Haitham Ahmed Zaki, son of late film icon Ahmed Zaki and actress Hala Fouad, died on Thursday aged 35 at home in Sheikh Zayed. Zaki began his career when he filled in for his father, who died before finishing “Halim,” a biopic of late Egyptian idol Abdel Halim Hafez. He then landed the lead role in El Belyatsho (Egyptian for pagliaccio, or clown in Italian), a movie exploring social injustice. El Hadidi dedicated an hour-long segment of her show to an interview with Zaki’s half-brother, Ramy Ezz El Din (watch, runtime: 51:50).