Interviews with Namees Arnous

The role of religious movements and the religious leaders and religious believers in pro-democracy is very bad, because I believe that the religious must be away of the democracy and the political issues. But what happening in Egypt is, religious have a very big role, affected negatively, because we saw that Christians and the churches called people to vote for someone who may be Christian. And mosques and Muslims extremist and Muslims and the imam – we call the leader of Muslim in some mosque, in one of the mosque – call people to vote for Salafist and the Muslim Brotherhood. And they control the will of people, which is not good.

I think it’s OK. It’s – in Egypt, it’s play a very big role. The religious and the religious leaders play a very big role, because people – the religious in the Egyptian people is a very big issue they interested in. So they believe and they trust in religious leaders. But if we make religious away of what happening in the state or in the political issue, it will be good.

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.