FORMER CARDIAC SURGEON Bassem Youssef hosted El Barnameg, a satirical news programme that first gained attention for making fun of Mohammed Morsi on air during the president’s short tenure, reaching as many as 30 million viewers per episode. His show was then suspended after he joked about frenzied Al-Sisi supporters in November 2013, later returning to screens, before Yousef’s decision to stop production rather than face censorship and threats on his life in May 2014. At the end of last year, Youssef and his production company were fined millions of Egyptian Pounds over a dispute with TV channel, an act critics described as revenge to silence the satirist.