Bassem Youssef, Egypt's Jon Stewart, says his show was canceled

Michael Nagle/Getty Images

Bassem Youssef, Egypt's Jon Stewart, says his show was canceled
(Image credit: Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

Bassem Youssef, the satirist who is most commonly known to Americans as "Egypt's Jon Stewart," has had his talk show canceled. At a press conference earlier today, Youssef said the Saudi network airing his show bowed to pressure to ax it, although he didn't specify from who.

Youssef started ElBernameg (Arabic for "The Program") in 2011 after Egypt's former leader Hosni Mubarak was replaced by Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. Since the military's ouster of Morsi last year, the country's new leader, former military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, isn't a fan of political satire or negative views about his administration.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.