Columnists are preoccupied with the teenagers who were detained for smuggling goods

The nation’s columnists are largely preoccupied with the minors who were detained for smuggling goods out of Ismailia and the infamous news reporter who interviewed them. Amr El Shobaki and Waguih Wahba each take to the pages of Al Masry Al Youm to lambast Rassd’s Salwa Hussein her interview, which El Shobaki says is full of contrived patriotism and completely devoid of professionalism or ethics. Wahba decries Hussein and the police present at the time for failing to respect the detainees’ human rights simply because they were in handcuffs at the time, and says that this is reflective of Egypt’s narrow understanding of human rights as exclusive to activists. Al Shorouk’s Khaled Sayed Ahmed, meanwhile, sees the interview and the outpouring of sympathy for the detainees as a warning sign for the government that the public is reaching its wit’s end with reforms.