Following a media campaign by the privately-run Egyptian newspaper El-Youm El-Sabaa (Youm7) that contained accusations against the German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) of allocating a budget to attack Egypt, the German ambassador to Egypt described these campaigns as “vulgar.”
In a statement released by the German Embassy in Cairo, ambassador Julius Georg Luy said that he is certain that the Egyptian audience will easily realise that this kind of media campaigns constitute an attempt to tarnish the German media outlet DW’s reputation and harm bilateral media relations between both countries.
The statement noted that DW’s financing is coming from Germany’s public treasury; however, the channel’s editorial policy is totally independent and not under government control.
“The German ambassador in Cairo strongly refuses any attempts to compare DW’s work and the German government’s current policies with the policies that were practiced by Nazi Germany,” the statement read.
Moreover, the ambassador asserted through the statement that the cooperation between Egypt and Germany will not let be affected by such attacks, especially following the visit of German chancellor Angela Merkel to Egypt three weeks ago.
DW, founded in 1953, constitutes German public media’s international broadcasting outlet. Like most public German media it obtains its financing from the state but is largely independent from government control.
Youm7 is a daily Arabic-language newspaper, founded as a weekly paper in 2008. It has twice been distinguished by Forbes Middle East for having the most effective news website in the Middle East. It has, however, come under criticism for racist headlines in 2014, while recently, in 2016, its editor-in-chief, Khaled Salah, and two editorial board members came under investigation for publishing false news.
