Egyptian TV bans parts of show parodizing former regime officials http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/486874

Egypt’s state-run TV has refused to air parts of a sitcom that parodize officials from the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, Al-Ahram newspaper’s website said.The move seems to revive practices by the old regime against media productions critical of its rule.Some episodes of “Al-Tayyara al-Shaqiya” (The Naughty Plane), currently screened by state-run Nile Comedy, includes humorous criticism of former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and the former National Democratic Party official Ahmed Ezz.

Censorship authorities also refused to air an episode featuring a character that closely resembles former Shura Council speaker Safwat al-Sherif.The newspaper said the show did not explicitly refer to those characters by their real names, but rather relied on the sharp resemblance.Director Mohamed Gamal told the newspaper that censorship officials asked him to replace the episodes