Egyptian journalists are planning a new protest in Cairo this weekend after six of their colleagues were charged with terrorism amid allegations that they were tortured while in police custody.
Last week, Egyptian authorities arrested journalists working for Matsadaash — an independent fact-checking and investigative platform — accusing them of operating without a license and producing false news for the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The six journalists are Abdallah Qadri, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Mohamed Adel, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Helal. They were detained by plainclothes officers at their homes and in the street.
One was charged on Sunday, and the other five on Wednesday evening. All six told their lawyers they had been tortured and forced to record false confession videos. Police deny the allegations.
“We are extremely horrified by the reports that six colleagues were tortured,” said Hadeer El-Mahdawy, a journalist with the protest’s organizing committee.
In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, Egypt’s public prosecution said “three journalists who alleged ill-treatment were forensically examined and no injuries or signs of violence were found.”
Another journalist, Rasha Azab, was questioned by the Supreme State Security Prosecution over a social media post criticizing the Interior Ministry over the arrests. Released on bail, Azab faces a charge of using a website to spread ideas promoting terrorism. Her lawyer, Mahienour El-Masry, said prosecutors confronted Azab with 11 identical complaints filed from different provinces over the post.
Lobna Darwish of the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate — whose lawyers are representing the six Matsadaash journalists — said the reporters “told prosecutors that they were blindfolded and handcuffed for days, beaten and forcibly stripped.” According to her, some were also subjected to electric shocks, and the journalists described threats to harm their family members.
Darwish added that they were forced to read confessions that appeared to be pre-written on paper during filming sessions with “multiple retakes” in the presence of what she described as a “professional film crew.”
Egypt’s Interior Ministry denies the torture or ill-treatment allegations, calling them “unfounded and an attempt by the detainees to evade the charges against them.” It described the six as “Muslim Brotherhood elements working for the group.”
For journalists, the arrests and allegations of abuse are part of a broader escalation by Egyptian authorities against independent media, set against low pay and precarious employment across the industry.
“We are at an extremely difficult moment in every way,” El-Mahdawy said. “But it is very important that we speak out against what is happening and use every tool we have to protect what remains of this profession, as well as to protect our colleagues and ourselves.”
