The Ramadan series The Group written by Wahid Hammed has apparently received nationwide attention but has it harvested sympathy for the regime as obviously intended?

The Satellite drama series recounts the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception by Hassan el Banna following the MB development from the colonial period up to the present.

The MB which is extremely popular on the street alleges bias however according to Magdy Algallad from Almasry Alyoum it appears that maybe the anti-MB Wahid Hammed may have done the group a favour where he claims that the series has helped promote the Brotherhood among segments of Egyptian society which the group has otherwise not reached before.

The aim of the program was to tarnish if possible, the Brotherhood’s image; hence the timing of its broadcast prior to the parliamentary election however it appears what ensued is in fact the opposite. The series has succeeded in presenting the Brotherhood’s beliefs to an extent and their struggle with the regime to hundreds of millions of Arabic-speaking viewers. As a result, the series has escalated consumer demands for al-Banna’s memoirs prompting interested generations who knew nothing about al-Banna to be educated on the founder's life

The regime’s recent prevention of political opposition leaders on private satellite channels may have in fact gained them public sympathy as the public is not completely ignorant to the security and its ways. Hammed depicts investigations and interrogations of the MB taking place in an amiable atmosphere where in all reality humiliation is customary of the proceedings. Dr. Essam el Erian the MB media spokesmen who has spent nearly nine years  in Mubarak’s prisons, relays that his personal experience differs with humiliation and torture lacing his interrogations.

Algallad stresses that although the Brotherhood members are mistakenly depicted as a group, violent at times, they have a message and are willing to make sacrifices.