CAIRO: A journalist with state-owned newspaper Akhbar al-Youm has been detained at Torah prison, Southern Cairo, over charges of “belonging to an illegal group,” said head of Journalists’ Syndicate Yahia al-Qalash Monday.
Qalash was informed Monday by the Ministry of Interior of the detention of journalist Mohamed Saber al-Batawy after the Syndicate filed a complaint against the police about the journalist’s disappearance.
On Wednesday, Batawy’s family said that a force from the Homeland Security stormed his house in Toukh city, Qalyubia (Delta,) and was held incommunicado.
Qalash told Youm7 the syndicate is following up the investigations with Batawy, who was arrested upon a warrant form the Homeland Security Prosecution.
On Saturday, the Syndicate said in another statement that it contacted with the Ministry of Interior for three consecutive days to release Batawy; a group of journalists protested outside the syndicate against his detention.
On June 25, The Committee to Protect Journalists will release a census of journalists imprisoned in Egypt, saying “Egypt ranked as the sixth worst jailer of journalists worldwide when CPJ conducted its most recent global prison census on December 1, 2014.”