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M-Net's award-winning investigate magazine show Carte Blanche this Sunday night at 19:00 will bring comprehensive coverage and first-hand, in-the-field reporting with presenter Chantal Rutter and producer Diana Lucas in Egypt who just got back last night from the country in the grip of unexpected civil unrest. Carte Blanche is working on a must-see hour of television for Sunday night.
''We left yesterday afternoon,'' says Diana Lucas, producer of this Sunday's Carte Blanche Egypt special. ''Tuesday we were there the mood was incredibly peaceful, but suddenly the mood turned on Wednesday and yesterday (Thursday).Our sound guy was hiding his camera - he was Egyptian - and he got a knife held to his neck. We wanted to go to the airport and we got stopped by a vigilante group with guns and knives. We're lucky we got out last night. We had an Egyptian crew, camera crew in Cairo and we're lucky otherwise we wouldn't be here,'' she says.
''Everything was fine on the first day, the popular crowd didn't have a problem with journalists. But the mood turned. A lot of people are upset with Al Jazeera and angry at Al Jazeera and they became enraged at Western journalists. There's roadblocks and anarchy and guns and there's basically no law there,'' she explains.
I asked Diana Lucas what viewers will be shown and get to see in this Sunday's Carte Blanche special. ''Viewers are going to see a slice in the life in a week in Egypt at this time,'' she says. ''We haven't forgotten the South African angle. There are South Africans living in Egypt and Carte Blanche does talk to them. We speak to them and we show how Cairo really is. How the process of civil unrest has now spun out of control. What we witnessed was frightening,'' she says. ''And we'll show it all.''
''I've never been frightened in South Africa like I've been there the past few days. And I've been to Egypt several times in the past. There's a frightening sense of a loss of control in Egypt. Vigilantes are basically in charge of the streets. Carte Blanche was right in the centre of it.''
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