Pro-Regime Journalists are Shaping Public Opinion in Egypt

By: Jared Malsin | CJR

One of Egypt’s most visible journalists at the moment is Mona Iraqi, a television personality who claimed to have tipped police off to the existence of a Cairo bathhouse where gay men were said to congregate then filmed the ensuing raid, one of several in an ongoing state crackdown on LGBT people.

An Egyptian court acquitted all 26 people who had been charged with “debauchery” and organizing “same-sex orgies” following the raid, which was widely denounced by rights advocates and other journalists. Iraqi’s show now reportedly faces cancellation as a result of the public relations fiasco surrounding the bathhouse case.