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.

Once a minister of defence in Morsi’s government, Sisi played a leading role in the July 2013 military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president.

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… MORE

Video showing Egypt generals plotting media gag – Middle East – Al Jazeera English (03 Oct 2013 09:32)