CAIRO (AP) – Egyptian media have reacted with fury as Britain and the United States increasingly point to a bomb as the cause of the Oct. 31 Russian plane crash in Sinai, and many have hammered home to the public here the message that the country is facing a Western conspiracy to scare off tourists and destroy the economy.
The warnings of a plot have been widely promoted by opinion-makers in print, online, and on TV, sometimes hinting and sometimes saying flat-out that the West has restricted flights to Egypt not purely out of safety concerns for its citizens but because it wants to undermine the country or prevent President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi from making Egypt too strong.
“The people defy the conspiracy – Egypt will not cave in to pressures,” the state-owned Al-Gomhuria newspaper proclaimed in a front-page headline this week. “Egypt stands up to ‘the West’s terrorism,'” an independent daily, El-Watan, headlined.
The rhetoric reflects in part the deep reluctance in the press to level serious criticism or suggestion of shortcomings by el-Sissi’s government.
Government and independent media alike have constantly lionized el-Sissi and depicted him as Egypt’s savior ever since – as head of the military – he led the army’s 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi after massive protests against Morsi and the power of his Muslim Brotherhood. Since el-Sissi’s election as president the following year, most media have continued to laud him as working to bring stability.