Protest in front of journalists' syndicate in Cairo on 2 January 2017. NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. “Listen only to me” - Even if he had tried, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi could not have described his authoritarian military reign better. Exactly one year since he demanded the people not believe the “enemies of the nation”, the margin for freedom of speech and expression has progressively shrunk to absurd levels.
On 17 March 2017, government sponsored candidate Abdel-Mohsen Salama became the head of the journalists' syndicate. Salama is the managing editor of state owned Al-Ahram newspaper, and at the top of his list of supporters is former National Security officer Ahmed Mousa, a notorious mouthpiece for the regime who was supposedly intentionally planted in Al-Ahram. This recent development forecasts even darker times for an already gloomy era.
The militarization of politics as well as authoritarianism are suffocating the people of Egypt. Public spaces are slowly but surely being securitized as the media is coopted. The economy is being divided like a pie to a select few, as a number of business tycoons and regime loyalists strategically buy out firms and distribute them among military men and their associates.
