High-ranking Egyptian government officials tried to block the airing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that aired on CBS Sunday, but the network refused, the Financial Times reports.

CBS correspondent Scott Pelley and producer Rachel Morehouse said the Egyptian government asked them directly to refrain from broadcasting the interview, which was recorded in New York in September.

The network promoted the program as “the interview Egypt’s government doesn’t want on TV.”

In the broadcast, Pelley questions el-Sisi about Egypt’s political prisoners, the massacre of at least 800 Muslims Brotherhood supporters in Cairo’s Rabaa Square, Egypt’s close cooperation with Israel in fighting ISIS militants, among other talking points.

“American taxpayers send more foreign aid to Egypt than to any other nation except Israel. But America's nearly one and a half billion dollars a year is going to a regime accused of the worst abuses in Egypt's modern history. Opponents of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have been imprisoned by the thousands. El-Sisi has strangled freedom of speech. And his troops have murdered protestors. As you might imagine, President El-Sisi does not do a lot of interviews,” reads the CBS intro.

El-Sisi told Pelley that Egypt doesn’t have political prisoners and asked whether he was closely following the situation in Cairo regarding the Rabaa Square protest camp.

“There were thousands of armed people in the sit–in for more than 40 days. We tried every peaceful means to disperse them,” he said.

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