Tuesday March 19th, 2024
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Egypt's Press Syndicate Orders 1-Year Media Blackout on Mortada Mansour

The decision comes after journalists were assaulted by Zamalek club's security guards.

Staff Writer

Zamalek Club Chairman and highly-controversial character Mortada Mansour’s name and photo has been banned from appearing in any press in Egypt for a year, which comes after a complaint was filed against him , according to the Press Syndicate.

Anyone seen violating the media blackout will be referred to the syndicate for investigation, according to head of Egypt’s Press Syndicate Abdel Mohsen Salama.

The syndicate decided to file a complaint to the general prosecutor against Mansour, but as the Zamalek chairman is a member of Egypt’s House of Representatives, he is granted immunity and therefore can’t summoned to investigation.

The decision is already in effect, and comes in the wake of Zamalek Club's security guards preventing journalists from entering the club and assaulting them. 

"We were clearly assaulted and humiliated before club members of non-journalists, workers and passers-by in front of the main club door," said a statement by the journalists involved in the incident. 

The eccentric Mortada Mansour clearly craves the public eye. Controversy and Mortada go hand in hand; just last month, he was banned from all sporting activities for two years after insulting the Egyptian Olympic Committee team and its president Hisham Hattab.

He also made headlines in 2015, when he decided to run for president and spoke about ripping up the peace treaty with Israel and “force atheists to practice atheism in their bathrooms”, before he withdrew from the race due to a “divine vision”. These are just a few examples of the many times Mortada made the news for bizarre reasons.