Egyptian journalists from fact-checking website facing terrorism charges
Matsda2sh rejects the accusation by prosecutors that its entire newsroom belongs to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian journalists from fact-checking website facing terrorism charges
Egyptian prosecutors have charged six journalists who work for the independent fact-checking platform Matsda2sh with belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, according to their lawyer.
On Monday, Nabeh al-Ganadi said the men were accused of joining a terrorist group, financing terrorism, posting "fake news", and using social media to urge acts of terrorism, he added. Matsda2sh has rejected the accusations.
Ganadi later said the State Security Prosecution had ordered five of them held in custody for 15 days, while the sixth was still being questioned.
The arrests of the journalists last week drew condemnation from international human rights and press freedom groups.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) described the detention of Matsda2sh's entire newsroom as a "grave escalation in Egypt's campaign against independent journalism".
It said Egypt remained one of the world's biggest jailers of journalists, with 25 currently imprisoned or detained.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has presided over what rights groups describe as an unprecedented crackdown on dissent since he led the military overthrow of his predecessor, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, in 2013.
Tens of thousands of people have been detained, mostly Muslim Brotherhood officials and supporters, but also prominent secular and liberal activists, media workers and academics.
Matsda2sh, whose name means "Do Not Believe" in Arabic, was established in 2018 to "resist the flow of false or misleading news", according to its website.
It routinely fact-checks remarks by Egyptian officials and produces investigative reporting in Egypt and other Arab countries.
According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), whose lawyers are representing them, security personnel arrested the six Matsda2sh journalists - Abdullah Qadry, Mohammed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Islam Barakat, Omar Helal, Mohammed Mahmoud, and Mohammed Adel - in a series of raids on their homes across Egypt on 28 and 29 September.
The EIPR said that at first, no details were given about where they were being held or why they had been detained.
On Thursday, Egypt's interior ministry confirmed the arrests and accused Matsda2sh of trying to destabilise the country through disinformation.
It said the platform was unlicensed and run from abroad, and that its founder, Abdel Rahman Mansour, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mansour said the claims "misrepresent who we are and the work we do".
"We have no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the authorities know this," he said.
On Monday, the EIPR said most of the detained journalists told the State Security Prosecution that they were "tortured at National Security Agency facilities in the days following their arrests, before being brought before any judicial authority".
The journalists reported "beatings, forced stripping, electric shocks and threats to harm them or their families", it added.
The interior ministry denied that they had been tortured or mistreated.
A ministry source said the EIPR's claims were "unfounded and come in the context of attempts to evade the charges levelled at them".