Listening Post - Bassem Youssef - No laughing matter

Al Jazeera English 2013-04-13

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Although it has been more than two years since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's revolution is still very much in motion. The rise of Mohamed Morsi has given the Muslim Brotherhood the voice it was denied for decades but there are those who see the president edging towards authoritarianism and who fear the creeping Islamisation of Egyptian politics and society. As the president's power has grown, so has the volume of critical voices in the media. One of those voices is that of Bassem Youssef whose wildly popular show satirising Egyptian politics has won comparisons with US presenter Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Headline writers in Egypt have been focussing on Youssef's case after he was taken to court for insulting the president, denigrating Islam and undermining security. But the larger story is not about the Morsi government's definition of what is funny or not; it is about freedom of the media in the post-revolutionary era. Two years after the heady days of Tahrir Square, the Egyptian media space has changed drastically from what it was under Mubarak. But the question is: Is the journalism any better, any more free?

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