The Egyptian government is demanding that CBS News pull an upcoming “60 Minutes” interview with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
According to CBS News, “60 Minutes” producers were contacted by the Egyptian ambassador and told the interview could not be aired. The outlet says the interview will still be broadcast on Jan. 6 at 7 p.m. ET.
{mosads}CBS reported that questions to Sisi about imprisoning his opponents and the killing of 800 civilians by the government during his tenure as defense minister were “not the kind of news his government wanted broadcast.”
Sisi, in the interview, dismissed reports from Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organization, that allege Egypt has detained as many as 60,000 political prisoners.
“I don’t know where they [Human Rights Watch] got that figure,” Sisi said. “Whenever there is a minority trying to impose their extremist ideology we have to intervene regardless of their numbers.”
Sisi also acknowledged having close ties with Israel.
“The 60 Minutes team was contacted by the Egyptian ambassador shortly after and told the interview could not be aired,” the network said.
CBS denied the request, promoting the Sisi interview as “The interview Egypt’s government doesn’t want on TV” on its website Friday.
The interview was conducted by “60 Minutes” correspondent and former “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley.
Sisi, 64, came to power after a military coup in 2013 that deposed former President Mohamed Morsi. Morsi was Egypt’s first democratically elected leader.