Fact Sheet
- Makram Mohammed Ahmed, Chairman of the High Council for Media Regulation, said that “no journalist is detained for a reason related to his religion, opinions or writings” in Egypt during a press conference held by the High Council of Information on 15 November 2017. The statements by the chair came in response to international reports on press freedom, especially the Freedom House report. Those statements contradict the unprecedented deterioration of press and media freedom in Egypt since mid-2013 in a context of wider closure of the public space. This fact sheet focuses on the 10 imprisoned journalists in Egypt, according to AFTE documentation.
- Random Arrests: Is one of the repeated forms of violation monitored and documented by several human rights organizations during the years following 30 June 2013, which witnessed suppression of protests and demonstrations, the issuance and enforcement of the law criminalizing demonstration without permit and eventually the declaration of a state of emergency seven months ago and its renewal for two successive times in July and October last. President Abdelfattah Elsisi had referred to this in one of his speeches and called for a revision of the cases of prisoners, especially students. Of course, journalists were among those cases who have been subjected to random arrests on many occasions.
- Direct targeting, which frequently happens to journalists when they are prevented from coverage and are stopped, their equipment confiscated and, on many occasions, arrested. The most targeted category among them is photojournalists. Journalists are also targeted directly against the background of investigative reports, as happened with journalist Hossam Bahgat when he was arrested and detained by Military Intelligence. This is also what happened to journalist Isma’il al-Iskandarani, who is currently in precautionary detention, because of his press reports about the situation in North Sinai. A number of journalists and media workers are now behind bars in the case known as Raba’a operation room, Mekamelin I and 2, which involved targeting media workers that the state considers to be undermining security and stability. Among them is Mahmoud Hussein, who is held in precautionary detention in case No. 11152/2016 because of his work as a news producer in the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel.
- Precautionary detention is used by investigative bodies as a punishment in itself and not a precautionary measure, since most arrested journalists are subjected to long periods of precautionary detention, extending beyond the maximum legal duration of two years before referral to trial. The National Council for Human Rights in a statement on the occasion of the African Day of Pre-trial Detention, on April 25 of each year, called for “a solution to this problem in particular and that a person may be held in custody and then after a long time is proved to be innocent, and thus would have been punished for a crime he did not commit.” There are in fact cases of journalists who spent a long period of precautionary detention, some of which extended beyond a year, before their innocence was proved or were released pending trials, including journalists Ahmed Gamal Ziada who spent 500 days in precautionary detention before the court acquitted him in the case known the media as “Al-Azhar university events” in December 2013.
- Criminal charges: In order for the proceedings not to be unconstitutional and to avoid accusations of incarcerating journalists, investigative authorities, based on inquiries from the Interior Ministry, uses accusations that are very similar in all cases of imprisoned journalists: joining the banned Muslim Brotherhood group and demonstrating without authorization, in addition to the accusations related to the practice of the profession, which is always in the form of dissemination of false news, statements and rumors aimed at undermining security and stability.
- Medical Neglect: Photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zayd “Shawkan”, who is serving his fourth year in prison in precautionary detention, suffers health deterioration due to his inflictin with a chronic blood disease “Thalassemia”. He needs continuous medical care, which is not granted by the prison administration, which refused to transfer him to hospital, and does not follow the necessary rules for his treatment. Attached is a copy of his medical reports.
