Egyptian journalists plan weekend protest over detention of six colleagues

Matsadaash staff allege torture and forced confessions after being held on charges of working for Muslim Brotherhood

Egyptian journalists are planning a new protest in Cairo this weekend after six colleagues were charged with terrorism offences amid allegations they had been tortured in police detention.

The journalists – Abdallah Qadri, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Emeira, Mohamed Adel, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Helal – were arrested at their homes and in the street by plainclothes officers.

“We were horrified by the news of the torture of our six colleagues,” said Hadeer El-Mahdawy, a journalist on the protest’s organising committee.

Another journalist, Rasha Azab, was questioned by the supreme state security prosecution for a post on social media criticising the interior ministry over the arrests. Released on bail, Azab faces charges of using a website to promote ideas advocating terrorist crimes. Her lawyer, Mahienour El-Masry, said prosecutors confronted Azab with 11 identical complaints lodged in different governorates over the post.

Darwish added that they were forced to read purported confessions from sheets of paper in filmed sessions involving “repeated takes” in front of what she described as “professional filming crews”.

For journalists, the arrests and alleged abuse form part of a broader escalation from the Egyptian authorities against independent media, amid poor pay and insecure employment across the profession.