CAIRO – An Egyptian journalist who reported the death of a young man in police custody was arrested for reporting fake news, his employer said Friday, the most recent blow to press freedom in the country.
The arrest of journalist Islam el-Kalhy comes after several other local hounds were arrested in recent weeks, despite fears of the spread of coronavirus in Egyptian prisons.
The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has a limited area for classical media and has eliminated dissent as a component of a widespread offensive. The content of the state media is strictly controlled, while most of the country’s personal media have been acquired through Egyptian intelligence or sympathizers. of el-Sissi.
The Ministry of the Interior responded to requests for comment. In the past, the Egyptian government denied rights violations and justified arrests on national security grounds.
El-Kalhy was arrested by police “while doing his job,” said his employer, Darb, a media outlet belonging to a socialist opposition party in Egypt. The printing for 24 hours before giving the impression in the prosecutor’s workplace on Thursday, where he was detained for broadcasting false information, disappeared by force.
He had reported on the “repercussions” of a young man’s death in custody, the media reported, a controversial case that sparked a rare wave of street protests last week. The 26-year-old’s family circle accuses the police of killing him, which the Home Office denies. The ministry insists that the guy who died was injured in clashes following a monetary confrontation in Cairo’s Moneib district.
Spontaneous outdoor street protests, the police station temporarily dispersed, but provoked widespread outrage over the police brutality that helped trigger the 2011 uprising that overthrew former Egyptian autocratic President Hosni Mubarak. overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, a democratically elected but divisive Islamist president amid great protests opposed to his government.
Khaled el-Balshy, Darb’s editor-in-chief and former member of the union’s board of directors, strongly denounced the arrest of el-Kalhy.
“It’s a depressing scenario to the point where making journalistic paintings is more like committing a crime,” he said. Government censors blocked Darb, along with his two previous publications, from the simple Internet in the country, he said.
“The long line of imprisoned Egyptian hounds does not stop, ” said el-Balshy. “Every day, it’s added, the last of which is my expensive colleague. “
Egypt ranks as the worst journalists in the world, along with Turkey and China, according to the U. S. -based Committee to Protect Journalists.
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