Egypt's Generals Plotting Media Gag

A new video has emerged which appears to show Egypt's military generals deciding how to deal with the country's media.

The footage, released by activists on Wednesday, shows army chief General Abdel Fatah el-Sisi addressing senior officers of the army in the months before Mohamed Morsi was ousted from power.

The new recording starts with an officer urging Sisi to find a way to frighten journalists from criticising the army.

"We must re-establish red lines for the media. We need to find a new way of neutralising them, the media in Egypt is controlled by 20 or 25 people," the officer is heard saying in the footage.

“We should engage with these people directly and individually either terrorise them or win them over,“ he adds.

Sisi then interrupts the officer and says: “I know how to win them over, but tell me how do you suggest I terrorise them?”

“I want to tell you that we’ve been concerned with controlling the media from the very first day the army took over power in 2011, and we suffered a lot; because in order to achieve what you’re talking about you need to have influence, it's not as simple as just setting up a committee or task force,” Sisi is heard saying in the video.

“It takes a long time before you’re able to affect and control the media. We are working on this and we are achieving more positive results but we are yet to achieve what we want.”

Since the military takeover on July 3, dozens of journalists have been arrested and several television stations shut down in Egypt.

"After the toppling of Mubarak, army generals were caught by surprise, They did not have a strategy. [For decades,] they controlled the media and had immunity and journalists couldn’t question them.

"But after the revolution, they lost control. So they are putting together a strategy where they could either win journalists over or threaten them to enforce the red lines they had before," Dajani, speaking from Washington D C, said.

Reporters Without Borders last week condemned the Egyptian authorities for targeting journalists, especially those affiliated with or sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We are very disturbed by a renewed increase in violations of fundamental freedoms, including freedom of information, and by a wave of official statements displaying clear hostility towards media that fail to sing the army’s praises,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.