Sisi bestows order of merit on Foreign Press Association chief: Official

CAIRO – 8 December 2019: President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi honored on Saturday Volkhard Windfuhr,chairman of the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Egypt, with a first class order, local media reported, citing the head of the Foreign Correspondents Press Center.

Sisi tasked Diaa Rashwan, head of the State Information Service (SIS), to grant German Windfur the order in a celebration set to take place on Monday at 12 p.m. in the headquarters of the SIS.


Windfur, a German correspondent and an Arab-West relations expert, has migrated with his mother in 1955, according to media reports.

Since the June 30 revolution, which ousted Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi, Windfuhr has criticized many times the foreign coverage of the incidents in Egypt.

In 2013, Windfuhr also warned against dangers facing journalists, according to Daily News Egypt, saying that it was a duty to “make our members aware of a seriously increasing danger for our journalistic performance and even lives.”

He referred to pro-Morsi protesters, days after the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in, accusing them of attacking their own state, and targeting public buildings and people at churches and stores owned by Christians.

In 2017, Volkhard Windfuhr criticized some foreign media outlets’ coverage of the terrorist attack that hit North Sinai’s Al-Rawdah Mosque, killing 311 Muslim worshipers and wounding 122.

In an interview with Al-Hayat, Windfuhr pointed out that foreign media's description of terrorists as militants "was not a coincidence,” noting that there is a difference between freedom of speech and spreading rumors.