Al-Jazeera, MB-affiliated channel release "fabricated" video of Egypt's Army

CAIRO- 21 April - Qatari TV network Al-Jazeera and Muslim Brotherhood channel Mekameleen have released a fabricated video that shows what it claims are “Egyptian soldiers” in Sinai shooting civilians, media experts said.

The video that was released on Thursday night on Muslim Brotherhood's Mekameleen Channel which operates from Turkey, shows armed men described by the Qatari network as “Egyptian military soldiers” taking out civilians from a vehicle and shooting them in a desert area that is similar to some areas in Sinai Peninsula.

The video was aired more than once by Al-Jazeera after it was released by Mekameleen.

“What is new about this video is not the fabrication; Al-Jazeera network is used to doing that anyway. What is new is their childish unprofessionalism,” said Moataz Abdel Fattah, Professor of Political Science at Cairo University and the American University in Cairo.

He added that this kind of propaganda does not decrease the public's confidence in the Egyptian army because Egyptians are smart enough to differentiate between what is real and what is fake.

“Reading the Egyptians' reactions on social media, I found that thousands of users have discovered the mistakes in the videos by themselves without waiting for an expert in film making,” Abdel Fattah added.

“Again it is another trick from Al-Jazeera to wage a psychological war against the Egyptian people and army,” he explained. “The fabrication is clearly evident from different angles: the clothes of the soldiers and victims look alike and is atypical of the Egyptian army uniform.



The words and slang language used in the video are not traditionally used by Egyptian officers or soldiers, and the beard of one of the soldiers does not fit into the looks code of the Egyptian army.” “Clearly the video was meant to fool the unknowledgeable of how Egyptians typically look, talk or behave, and to cast heavy doubts on the ethics of the Egyptian army,” Abdel Fattah said.