Gamal Bakheet Calls for Campaign to Close Al Jazeera Offices in Arab World

Egyptian poet Gamal Bakheet has launched a campaign, with the support of a number of other intellectuals, political activists and academics, to close the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera due to their "deliberate attempt to humiliate Egypt" in airing fallacies in their news coverage of recent events and distorting reality.

The "Arab National Campaign to Protect Society" demanded in their first released statement that Al Jazeera offices be closed throughout the Arab world. The statement also called on all of the channel's Arab journalists to withdraw from the organization immediately, in order to preserve their integrity and patriotism over "material temptations."

The Egyptian Cinema Syndicate recently expelled all of its members who work for Al Jazeera, now enguled in Egypt's polarized media and culture war, and called for the immediate closure of the channel. Talks between Al Jazeera and newly appointed Information Minister Dorreya Sharaf el-Din are currently ongoing.