Egyptian reporter detained while covering unrest
October 5, 2020
Egyptian authorities detained a local journalist, allegedly due to the fact that she worked on a story of a man killed during a police raid.
Basma Mostafa had arrived in the southern city of Luxor on Saturday. However, she soon lost touch with al-Manassa, the news website she worked for. In a report, her employer said she believed she was being monitored by the police.
The al-Manassa network is banned from operating in Egypt, and its website is blocked.
Detained in Cairo
Mostafa, a 30-year-old mother of two, had been working on a story about clashes that had broken out after the murder of a local man by police authorities.
Al-Manassa confirmed later that she had been interrogated by prosecutors, who had ordered her to remain in custody for 15 days. Mostafa's husband, lawyer Karim Abdel-Rady, said she appeared Sunday at the headquarters of Egypt's state security prosecution in Cairo.
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According to the AP news agency, her husband and another lawyer who attended her hearings said she was facing accusations of disseminating false news and joining a terrorist group. This was in reference to the Muslim Brotherhood group which the government banned since 2013.
Crackdown on media
Mostafa's arrest is the latest in a series of curbs placed by the government on independent media outlets. Presidet Abdel Fattah el-Sissi's government has imprisoned dozens of journalists, and expelled correspondents from some countriessuch as Britain, as well as Turkey and China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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Al-Manassa's offices had been raided in June this year, and its editor had been briefly arrested on charges of operating without a license.
tg /dj (AP,dw)