Qatar’s Al Jazeera accused Egypt on Monday of detaining one of its producers on “fabricated charges” – the latest employee to be entangled in the news channel’s bitter dispute with Cairo.
The broadcaster described the allegations levied by Egypt’s interior ministry against Mahmoud Hussein as containing “an alarming number of false facts and allegations”.
Egypt said on Sunday it had detained Hussein at a home in Cairo, and that he was being instructed by his Doha-based employer to publish “false rumours” about the country.
Al Jazeera said Hussein didn’t work as a “correspondent supervisor as alleged”, but as a producer for its Arabic-language channel.
“Mahmoud went to Egypt to visit his family during his vacation with full confidence in himself, his profession and his integrity,” the broadcaster said.
It’s unclear if Hussein has a lawyer. Egyptian officials have said he’ll be held for 15 days pending an investigation.
This is the latest arrest by Cairo targeting the state-funded news channel, whose coverage in the years after Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the military’s removal of president Mohamed Morsi following mass protests against his rule in 2013 has been heavily criticised by the government.
Three Al Jazeera English employees were convicted and imprisoned in June 2014 over allegations of collaborating with the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, a case that drew international condemnation. Qatar’s conservative rulers had strong ties to the Brotherhood, from which Morsi hailed.
One of the journalists, Australian Peter Greste, was deported from Egypt in February 2015. The other two, Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed, received presidential pardons in September 2015.
Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Abdullah Elshamy, who was also held for 10 months without charge, was later released after a hunger strike. Meanwhile, two other Al Jazeera employees were sentenced to death in absentia this June for passing secret state documents to Qatar, renewing tensions between the two nations.
* Associated Press
