I was just the reviewer…

I reviewed the papers for BBC World on Friday morning, and the lead story was, unsurprisingly, Egypt – with an article taken from the Gulf Times. I commented that I felt that the balance of coverage in the UK, previously heavily weighted in favour of Morsi, had shifted overnight following the horrors of Thursday. (It is interesting, in that context, to hear the interview in this piece.)

Anyway… I got this e-mail later the same day from someone I can tell you nothing about (and who clearly knows nothing about me: I was just reviewing the papers!). As with my last post, I thought it interesting enough to reproduce. For those of you waiting for something on gambling, I’ll return to it in September… But I haven’t the will to pen anything about Place of Consumption Taxes in August even if the government has now published its summary of responses to its consultation paper, and I’m still resting on my laurels from 8th July…)

If the BBC wants to uphold its claim to impartiality and credibility it needs to address the following issues:

1. If there was a Coup  d’Etat, it was on November 22, 2012, when Mr. Morsi,  returning from Gaza, where he had met with Mrs. Clinton, Hamas and Isareli officials, made an amendment to the Constitution giving himself unchallenged, plenipotentiary powers….
2. The Egyptians are not divided into 2 semi equal portions of  population, but between few hundred of thousands wanting to reinstate the ousted president   and  tens of millions  ( check pictures of Egypt on June 30 and  July 26) refusing to be governed by  religious fascism . The fact that thousands are armed and organized into militias allows them to create havoc.
3. To know how the brotherhood “democratic” state was functioning, please visit Christian communities living under terror in Upper Egyptian villages
4. What we had at Rabaa and Nahda were MB strongholds with armed militias, and certainly not peaceful  sit ins. The fact that your international observers did not find arms during their inspection does not mean they did not exist, but that they were very well hidden.
5. Concerning the right for peaceful sit ins, during the past year,  we have seen, peaceful demonstrators roughly dispersed and arrested by security forces in New York, London , Athens and Istanbul,  irrespective of the fact that in all these cases, they were not armed and hardly resisted arrest….
6. The question is how do you evacuate armed groups peacefully? Your reports have obvious inconsistencies:  If, as you say, advanced, heavy equipment was used against randomly armed groups, how come the fight did not end in minutes? The fact that, as we have seen, it took hours, is a proof that advanced armament was not used and that Security forces only fired to defend themselves
7. The so called “sit ins” were in the middle of residential quarters, disrupting the life of the city.   Militias  and their fanatic – but often ignorant – followers, were continuously abusing  residents; they also  used  them as human shields Please check the hundreds of complaints filed by dwellers of Rabaa in the past weeks
8. This morning, your correspondent, Jeremy Bowen when asked who was ordering the evacuation operations answered that it was the army and general Sissi , completely ignoring the civilian government proclamation few days back, that both strongholds had to be evacuated by force if necessary  and giving a 48 hours warning to both areas
9. Western media ignores that for the past 5 weeks, the government has repeatedly warned “peaceful “individuals to leave so as to avoid to be subjected to  hardships
10. Please do not use the term “ anti Morsi” or “pro military” to define the majority of Egyptians, who like myself want to separate State from Religion and  refuse to be ruled by an international terrorist organization seeking religious  legitimization.  We are the Pro-Secular people, who are  finding ourselves forced to fight for a Democratic Secular State. For us , our hope for any kind of  Democracy was blown up on November 22, as explained above
11. Before I end, I wish to ask two questions:

A.)   How would you, or your audience react if for 6weeks, a Qa’ada armed group occupied the entrance of your building, harassing women, threatening men, searching cars, asking for IDs, and eventually torturing anyone whose political convictions  or religion does not please them…  After 6 weeks of  pleading, would you not welcome their removal by any means ?

B.)   I also wish you would ask some of your objective analysts about what our stand today against Political Religious Fascism will mean, not only for Egypt and the Middle East, but its implications as to the future of Terrorism  and its spread in the world … In my view what is happening now in my country is the first line of defense against an  eminent danger threatening your future and that of your children.