Egypt lets Israeli TV report near Morsi's gravesite

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) - While restricting local remembrances of its first democratically elected president, Egyptian authorities have allowed Israeli state television to broadcast from an area very close to the cemetery where late President Mohamed Morsi was buried.

"Not far from this place, the cemetery of Nasr City east of Cairo, [former] Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was buried last night," a reporter for Israeli state-owned Kan TV said in a report Wednesday.

Egyptian authorities have not allowed the general public to attend his funeral prayers and also refused to allow Morsi’s burial in his hometown in the Sharkia province.

The reporter appeared in a cemetery area which seemed both calm and empty.

The Israeli correspondent arrived in Cairo less than 24 hours after Morsi’s shocking death on Monday in the middle of a courtroom hearing.

After being rebuffed for “man on the streets” interviews in Cairo, he said "local residents refused to talk in front of the camera."

The reporter stressed the poor coverage of the late statesman’s death in the local press, saying: "It was hard to find a small news item in Egyptian newspapers."

A leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood group, Morsi won the country’s first free presidential election in 2012.

After only a year in office, he was ousted and imprisoned in a bloody military coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's then defense minister and current president.

At the time of his death, Morsi faced a host of legal charges, which numerous human rights groups and independent observers said were politically motivated.