CAIRO: Four journalists working for Al Jazeera were detained in Cairo on Sunday night on charges of publishing information “harmful to national security” and meeting with the recently-banned Muslim Brotherhood.
The arrests are the latest event in a series of government crackdowns against press freedom, which have led to numerous arrests, detentions, closure of news outlets, and even deaths. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that six journalists were killed while working in Egypt this year.
A Ministry of Interior (MOI) spokesman confirmed that two journalists were arrested at the Marriott Hotel in Zamalek where the Al Jazeera news team was using two suites as a temporary base of operation.