Bassem Youssif is a Thief : A Strong Ironic Storm on Facebook
Cairo: HelloEgy.
A storm of criticism and comments were made on the Egyptian anchor Bassem Youssif yesterday, and still, after he was accused of plagiarism , as he stole an essay from a Jewish writer.
The plagiarism was discovered when the readers found that Bassem Youssif, who used to write periodically in “Ah Shrouk Newspaper”, has published the essay of a Jewish writer called Bin Jodah. The original writer has published his essay on the American website called “Politica” . Bassem Youssif took the essay and republished it with his name and photo in Al Shrouk last Tuesday.
The essay was discussing the attitude of the Russian president Putin towards the the Ukrainian crisis. The essay was published under the title of “ Why Russia is no longer afraid of the West”.
Every week, Bassem Youssif criticizes on his show “Al Bernameg” the lack commitment of Egyptian media ethics , but he himself has no commitment to his professional ethics and made plagiarism.
And after his plagiarism was known foe almost every one, he apologized in a statement published in Al Shrouk considering that he forgot to refer to the sources of his essay in the end because of “ work pressures” . Ben Judah , the original writer, has posted on Twitter saying that he accepted Bassem’s apology. But the apology did not convince a huge slice of artists and media networking sites and also a huge number of social networking users, as they considered it as an excuse that is worse than the sin itself. His apology proves the act of plagiarism.
Facebook and other sited were suddenly full of satire criticizing comments, posts, and pictures talking about Bassem. There were not just comments, but 7 pages have appeared on Facebook under the same title of “Bassem is a Thief” , each has attracted about 3000 followers only in the first day.
The pages were full of dozens of comments and pictures that criticizes the anchor and accuses him of being unpatriotic and even traitor because of his show on MBC Masr channel, in which he attacks the Egyptian army in the time the soldiers die every day defending the country. The designers of the comics used some proverbs and famous sayings to make lough on his plagiarism.
Another one has posted on Twitter : “every week Bassem explains the necessity of honesty and credibility of the media professions ... LOL”. Another one posted on Facebook “ Stealing from a Jewish !! A Thief and traitor !”
Some of the comics makes use of a famous song by Nansy Ajram called “Shater Shater” a nice song for kids. They wrote “ the thief is Bassem Bassem” . Another one made use of a famous photo of Bassem holding a microphone as if he screaming : “H am a THIEF” . In the last but not least, he appeared in a comic talking with an Israeli intelligence officer - a role that was played in an Egyptian movies by the artist Yahia Al Fkharany- saying : “ your sone has defamed me!!”
Other comics show him wearing the famous uniform of thieves, the black-white lined te-shirt. And endless comics dealing with the same issue, and the most impressive was :” you were my idol and collapsed , oh, internet and press plagiarist” .
In another comics showing a sport event in which the former player Magdy Abdel Ghany says : “ be careful from the thief who stole the Jew’s essay makes you forget the goal i scored in the World Cup” . Another comics used a photo of the actor Adel Imam talking to Ola Ramy as she asks : ” who is this? “ , he answers refereeing to a statue with the head of Bassem saying that : “ this is the god of plagiarism” .
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