Egypt’s press union chief rejects pressure over detained journalists

The head of Egypt’s Journalists Syndicate has insisted the organisation will continue to fight for press freedom after it came under fire for defending six journalists who were detained last month and charged with joining a “terrorist” group.

“What happens to one colleague affects us all, and may happen to others tomorrow,” Khaled Elbalshy said in a statement on Sunday. “An infringement of one journalist’s freedom is an infringement of everyone’s freedom and a weakening of the safeguards protecting that freedom.”

His comments came after the syndicate filed a complaint with Egypt’s public prosecutor over allegations that the detained journalists, who work for the investigative website Matsadaash, had been tortured. Egyptian authorities denied the accusations, while pro-government commentators criticised the organisation for defending the journalists.

Mohamed Adel, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohamed Mahmoud and Abdallah Qadry were arrested on September 28 and 29 and have since appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which prosecutes national security cases. They have been ordered to be held in pretrial detention for 15 days pending investigations.

Egyptian prosecutors have accused the six journalists of working for a media organisation tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group Egyptian authorities have cracked down on for years following a 2013 coup against democratically elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who was a member. Egypt has officially designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group, an allegation the organisation has strongly denied, while human rights groups have accused Egyptian authorities of repressing freedoms.

Matsadaash co-founder Abdelrahman Mansour has also rejected any links between the media platform and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In his statement, Elbalshy said: “The fundamental principle governing all such matters, particularly when dealing with accused persons in general and vulnerable people in particular, remains that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty.”

Allegations of torture

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), whose lawyers are representing the six journalists, said they were initially held for five days without any contact with their families or lawyers. After complaints, the journalists appeared before prosecutors and were questioned in the presence of their lawyers and a representative from the Journalists Syndicate.

The EIPR said the journalists were being held under Egypt’s 2015 Counterterrorism Law that allows for suspects to be held in custody before appearing before prosecutors “when there is a risk of a terrorist crime and a necessity to confront that risk”. The rights group, however, noted that the prosecution only alleges that the journalists published rumours or “false” reports.

“The public prosecution should have identified the imminent terrorist threat that required denying them their right to appear before a judicial authority within 24 hours of their arrest,” the EIPR said on October 7.

The EIPR has also said that most of the six journalists said they were tortured following their arrests, including being beaten and subjected to electric shocks. It added that several of the detained had been forced to record fabricated confessions.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry has rejected the allegations.

Matsadaash was founded in 2018 as a fact-checking platform, but has since expanded into investigative journalism. Its website is blocked in Egypt, but it has more than 1.3 million followers on Facebook.

The outlet has previously faced pressure from Egyptian authorities, including in 2023, when one of its journalists, Karim Asaad, was arrested after Matsadaash published an investigation into a suspected smuggling scandal involving a plane that had flown from Cairo to Zambia. He was later released.