Interviews with Namees Arnous

I studied mass communication and journalism. I believe in freedom of expression. I started work as a TV reporter in one of the famous channel satellite in Egypt – independent channel, private channel; it’s not a state channel in 2006. I was a TV reporter for a very well-known talk show. Made reports about political issues and social issues, economic issues, everything in the talk show. And actually we haven’t independent media in Egypt. We haven’t – we hadn’t and we haven’t freedom of expression in Egypt.

And sometime when I decided to do something about the political situation and the people who don’t like the regime and suffer from the regime, suffer from the police, the management of my channel refused because of the relationship between the owner of this channel and the regime. But during the revolution, I was a demonstrator as individual citizen, Egyptian citizen. But my channel decided to be the side of the regime.

And they paid for girl to be on air and said the people on – in Tahrir Square, the guys and the girls and they boys, they out in Tahrir Square, were trained by the Mossad and were take money from U.S. and Europe to make all this issues in the streets. And I knew it’s not true, and I knew it’s someone who – someone in the channel – paid for her. And then I wrote on my Facebook and Twitter account, it’s not true what going on in El Mehwar channel. El Mehwar, it’s the name of my channel. And it’s – don’t believe them. I know the story; it’s not true story.

And then all the staff in my channel decided to attack me: You are an agency, you are taking money from foreign countries to do that, and so on. And then I decided to resign because we are – we were in the revolution, and you must choose. You will be with the regime, the dictatorship regime, or you will be with the streets, the people. I decided to be in the streets and Tahrir Square and left the channel because I respect myself.

Namees Arnous is a well-known television reporter and civil society activist in Egypt. During the Egyptian Revolution, Namees was asked to spread inaccurate stories by El Mehwar Television, her employer. When Namees used social media to publicize the channel’s stance against the Revolution, she was characterized as being a foreign agent and receiving money from foreign governments. She resigned from El Mehwar.

Namees then founded a new media production company which includes television, radio and social media outlets. She aims to promote human rights and democratic principles by training individuals in new media. She is currently working on a project to produce a new television program aimed at Egyptian women, focusing on issues of concern to them.

Namees has worked on a number of civil society campaigns. These include the Change Your Life Campaign, which aims to encourage women to be independent and the Be Free Campaign, which addresses young Muslim women extremists.

She worked on a civic journalism campaign to cover youth participation in elections in their respective regions. The campaign was broadcast on her NGO’s radio station and website.

Namees was among the inaugural group of the George W. Bush Institute’s Women’s Initiative Fellowship Program in 2012, a leadership program designed to empower and equip women to catalyze change.

Namees has her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication with a focus on Television and Radio.