11.08.2005 : BBG REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSS RADIO SAWA WITH INFORMATION MINISTER EL FEKKI - Nyheter - Wikileaks

26.07.2005: CHARGE DISCUSSES RADIO SAWA AND FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS´ ACCESS WITH INFORMATION MINISTER EL FEKKI - Nyheter - Wikileaks - Aftenposten.no
►http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4025250.ece

Charge and PAC met with Information Minister Anas Al Fekki on July 26 to urge that GOE allow Radio Sawa to create a broadcast facility in Egypt and to relay the complaint from foreign correspondents stationed here that they lack on-the-record access to GOE officials. The Minister agreed to meet with Broadcasting Board of Governors´ (BBG) representatives to explain his plan for revising the law that prohibits non-government ownership of broadcasting and thus to enable Sawa to broadcast within Egypt. But he firmly rejected linking Sawa with aid to Egypt, saying that the GOE would rather forfeit the aid than look like it was leapfrogging the law in response to U.S. pressure. Such an approach, he said, would badly damage the public image of the U.S.-Egyptian partnership and destroy any chance of getting a broadcast facility for Sawa. Portraying himself as a liberal reformer who favors a free media climate, the Minister pointed to sweeping changes in the Information Ministry, which controls the pervasive state TV and radio. He highlighted the real-time and unfettered coverage by Egyptian TV of the Sharm el Sheikh bombings and his own efforts to ensure free and balanced access by all Presidential candidates to the broadcast media. End Summary.

11.08.2005: BBG REPRESENTATIVES DISCUSS RADIO SAWA WITH INFORMATION MINISTER EL FEKKI - Nyheter - Wikileaks - Aftenposten.no
►http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4025254.ece

During their meeting with Information Minister El Fekki and other broadcast officials, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) team headed by Executive Director Brian Conniff found no Egyptian willingness to find a quick solution that will enable Radio SAWA to build a broadcast tower in Egypt. In contrast to a more upbeat-sounding approach in his July 26 discussion with the Charge and PAO (reftel), the Minister — as BBG Director Conniff put it — seemed “unconcerned” by the prospect of $227 million being withheld from Egypt´s ESF if there is no progress towards a local SAWA FM broadcast. Both the Minister and his Deputy, whom the BBG group met later, stressed that a total overhaul of Broadcasting Law 13 is the only way forward for SAWA or any other non-GOE broadcasters. They admit that this process, which must wait for the November parliamentary elections and the subsequent legislative process, could take three to five years. Executive Director Conniff made his disappointment clear to the Minister and his Deputy and informed them that he would have to report this response to staffers working on the appropriations bill. If Egypt had to pay $227 million to uphold the integrity of its legal processes, so be it, was the Minister´s response.