Bassem Youssef Accused of Insulting the President; A Response to a Friend

Dec 23

Apparently, a lawyer somewhere in Egypt filed a complaint with a prosecutor accusing the Egyptian political satirist, Bassem Youssef, with “insulting the President.” I had previously used the fact that Bassem Youssef’s show is even on the air as evidence that Egypt today cannot reasonably be considered a dictatorship, or at a minimum, that it is substantially more free, at least with respect to political expression, than it was in the Mubarak-era.  My friend then used this as a “classic gotcha moment”  This was what I said to my dear friend (meant seriously) in reply:

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