Summary: On The Listening Post this week: With presidential elections due next month, dissent has all but disappeared in Sisi's Egypt. Plus, Viktor Orban's ever-tightening grip on Hungary's media. Arrested, Banned, Exiled: Egypt's Dissenting Voices If you're a journalist covering the upcoming election in Egypt, your contacts in the security services may prove more useful than those you have in parliament. There have been more arrests than manifestos; the candidates are dropping like flies. Take Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, for example. He decided not to run against President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, but was arrested this past week anyway, upon his return to Cairo after doing an interview in London. It's not just what he said, denouncing Egypt's crackdown on dissent, but where he said it - one of our sister channels Al Jazeera Mubasher, which is network non grata in Egypt. Istanbul is also on Cairo's radar these days, because of the opposition channels that beam out of there and into Egypt, Mekameleen and Al Sharq. They are probably the reason travel restrictions have been placed on Egyptian journalists trying to go there. The Sisi government has got its bases covered - voices of opposition, news outlets that provide them with platforms and journalists with plane tickets. Contributors: Maha Azzam, president, Egyptian Revolutionary Council Omar al-Ghazzi, assistant professor of media, LSE Hamza Zawba, talk show host, Mekameleen TV Sahar Khamis, associate professor of communication, University of Maryland Hungary: Whistleblowing on Orban's media manipulation If the polls are to be believed, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban could win his third consecutive election this April. Should that happen, the media there will have played a large part. Since coming to power for the second time in 2010, the Orban government has devoted considerable energy and resources to restructuring the domestic media landscape in its favour. The closure of Hungary's most influential opposition newspaper Nepszabadsag in October 2016 made headlines, but that is just one example of many government-linked buyouts. Most of Hungary's private media is now in the hands of businessmen allied to the prime minister and his party, Fidesz. Those news outlets, alongside numerous state-owned channels, strongly support Orban's anti-immigrant policies and tend to amplify his anti-Muslim messaging. According to two whistleblowers working at state-owned media, the MTVA - that's because the government is directing their output and those news outlets dutifully fall in line. Contributors: Agnes Urban, media researcher Daniel Renyi, journalist 444.HU MTVA employees More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/
