Christian media in the Middle East

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Various Christian media ensure that Christians are supplied with media on religious topics in the Middle East . This takes place mainly through private television and radio companies, the circulation of the print media is largely declining. The press freedom in the countries of the Middle East is the most in Lebanon realized. The consideration of political and religious conditions means that programs that contain criticism of politics and of the majority religion are deliberately avoided. These media want to strengthen the Christian identity and the Christian-oriental culture among the audience and believers.

Television and radio stations

In the Middle East there are several television and radio stations that are either church-based or church-affiliated and are mostly broadcast in the local language. The media institutions are usually financed through donations.

Media based in Lebanon

The oldest church-sponsored television channels are in Lebanon (here Maronite corporations as sponsors), whereby the international program is specially tailored to Christians who live as minorities in Islamic countries (neighboring and Gulf states, North Africa). The program language is mainly Arabic .

In addition to the broadcasts of church services, the church music programs and the theological discourses on TeleLumiere are popular. There is also regular interreligious dialogue between Christian theologians and Islamic clergy.

  • MTV (Murr-TV) was a broadcaster of the Rum-Orthodox entrepreneur M. Murr, whose operation was stopped in 2002 for political reasons. Even if the broadcaster had no purely religious concerns, Christian-Orthodox topics were nonetheless taken up.

The radio stations are:

Media from Egypt

  • Coptic TV station C-TV Since November 2007, the Coptic Orthodox satellite station C-TV has been broadcasting the Coptic Channel . The station is financed by the Egyptian pharmacist and businessman Tharwat Bassili. The station runs 24 hours and broadcasts in Arabic. C-TV broadcasts church services, speeches by the patriarch, Christian films and music and presents churches and monasteries in Egypt. Christian theological programs and sermons are also broadcast. The station is broadcast on Hot Bird 13 ° East of the satellite operator Eutelsat. It is broadcast on frequency 11.054 H (SR 27500, FEC 3/4) in the T-Systems package.
  • Coptic broadcaster Agaphy TV , the broadcaster was founded in 2005 by the Coptic Church. Church services, Christian music and films are broadcast. The station can be received via Telstar and via the Internet. The language is arabic. The station is directed by the Coptic Bishop Anba Botros and is based in Egypt, Cairo.

Media from other countries

TV channels with Christian programs from other countries are:

The headquarters of SAT-7, which was founded in 1995 and has been on the air since 1996, is in Cyprus , the editorial office in Egypt and production facilities in Lebanon. No political programs are broadcast, and there is no critical engagement with other religious groups. SAT-7 broadcasts information and educational programs, for example for illiterate people and small businesses. The television companies TURK-7 and ICB cooperate with SAT-7.

As broadcast stations there are

  • Trans World Radio , owned by a Protestant carrier, also broadcasts programs in Arabic.
  • Al Bishara , from the Greek Orthodox convent of the same name in Aleppo, Syria, the radio station has an exclusively religious 24-hour program, with music, liturgy, and Bible studies

Print media

Lebanon

  • L'Orient-Le Jour is a French-language daily newspaper in Lebanon. It is mostly read by Christians.
  • An-Nahar is a Lebanese daily newspaper, the founder of which is the Tueni family, a member of the Roman Orthodox Church. Despite the secular and Arab-national orientation of the newspaper, there is ample coverage of events in this church, speeches and trips by church leaders. The publishing house affiliated with the daily newspaper also publishes books on church topics (history of the Balamand monastery ).

Egypt

The Egyptian weekly newspaper Watani (in German: My Homeland) was founded in 1958 by the Copt Antoun Sidhoum (1915-1995). Sidhoum is committed to a democratic civil society in Egypt in which all Egyptians, regardless of their religious affiliation, receive full civil rights. Today Watani is still committed to the goals of the founder and addresses the increasing marginalization of the Copts, their culture and their role within Egyptian society. In addition to general political issues, Watani has a special focus on Coptic issues, their legacy and their contributions to Egyptian society.

Armenian newspaper in Turkey

  • Agos is the name of an Armenian weekly newspaper in Turkey, which is published bilingually in Armenian and Turkish. Agos has a small print run (approx. 5000), but it is important because politically sensitive issues are discussed openly and harassment by the Turkish authorities against the Christian minority in Turkey is reported. The editor is the journalist Hrant Dink . He was murdered in Istanbul on January 19, 2007.

Christian journalists

There is a wide range of Christian journalists in the Orient. They take pro-Western or pro-Arab or politically left or right or pro-Christian or pro-Islamist positions.

Some Lebanese journalists were very critical of the Syrian occupation of the country. The most famous of them were killed in assassinations Samir Kassir , Gebran Tueni , May Chidiac or were seriously injured in an assassination attempt.

Some Christian journalists who, like the anti-Syrian journalists, see themselves as independent opinion leaders or intellectuals cannot necessarily be assigned to a camp, for example pro-western or pro-Christian. During the Lebanese civil war , Elias Khoury was on the left and the Palestinian side, which he later viewed as a mistake or relativized. He also took a pro-Hezbollah position during the 2006 Lebanon War . Other Christian journalists in the Orient are also reported to be more likely to defend the Hezbollah argument, while Shiite journalists Abbas Beydoun and Mona Fayat , for example , were very critical of Hezbollah. In an article in the NZZ on August 14, 2006 it is reported that leading Christian journalists should also be recruited for a new newspaper to be founded, which is supposed to be close to Hezbollah. The motivation of the opposing positions is difficult to explain. It is unclear how much conviction, opportunism, need for protection, mainstream or strategic alliances are behind the individual positions.

The positions of Abbas Beydoun and others were subsequently relativized by a journalist of Iraqi origin based in Germany, as he or she apparently takes a different position in Arab newspapers (pro-Hezbollah) than in the west (anti-Hezbollah).

Another important journalist was the Lebanese maronite Joseph Samaha (1948–2007). He was a columnist and editor-in-chief of the Lebanese magazine As-Safir and most recently worked as editor-in-chief for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar , which is close to the Lebanese opposition around Michel Aoun . In the 1980s he worked for the weekly newspaper Al-Youm Al-Sabeh , Paris and later for Al-Hayat , London. He was known for his political analysis. He criticized the US Middle East policy, advocated for the sectarian balance in Lebanon and for Lebanon's membership of the Arab world. Most recently, he criticized both political groups (government and opposition) in the Lebanese domestic political crisis (2006/2007) and called on both sides to reconsider their plans.

A well-known anchorman on Lebanese television is Zaven Kouyoumdjian , he is one of the most influential people in the Arab world. In his program Siré Wenfatahit , he tackles some hot topics .

Weblogs

The number of Christian weblogs is also increasing in the Middle East. Appreciated as an independent media, the first blog authors were oriental Christians, living in North America and Europe. Weblogs are sources of critical information. Tony Badhran's blog (see below) is one of the most prominent opponents of Syrian influence in Lebanon and thus represents the vast majority of Christians in Lebanon.

Web links

credentials

  1. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Strange Alliances in Lebanon - Christian press voices stand up for Hezbollah ( memento of March 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), August 14, 2006
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung: Storming Fire Circling the Gulf , by Khalid al-Maaly, September 14, 2006