Egypt Releases Two Journalists After International Outcry
CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – Egyptian authorities released journalists Solafa Magdy and her husband Hossam el-Sayyad on Wednesday after more than a year in pre-trial detention, which rights groups have condemned as an attack on free speech.
Magdy and Sayyad had been in custody for more than 16 months on charges of "spreading false news” and "joining a terrorist group”, as part of case No 488 of the year 2019, which is linked to the crackdown on the rare anti-government protests of March that year.
The release came a day after journalist Khaled Dawoud, who was imprisoned on the same charges, was also released.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International, which had led an international campaign for the couple’s freedom, welcomed the news of the three journalists’ release, but said that "they should not have spent a single day in prison in the first place”.
"We hope that the Egyptian authorities will continue to release arbitrarily detained journalists and the thousands of others behind bars whose only crime was peacefully exercising their rights,” Amnesty’s Egypt researcher Hussein Bayoumi said in a statement to Middle East Eye.
Magdy had recently been quoted by rights groups as saying that she had been a victim of physical abuse on several occasions while in custody in Al-Qanater women’s prison. According to a joint statement by a number of Egyptian rights organizations, Magdy’s lawyers submitted evidence proving the incidents of assault, including beatings and dragging, in her testimony before prosecutors on 19 January.
In the report, Magdy’s defense team said that on the evening of 29 November 2020, she was taken from her cell blindfolded to interrogation before an officer who requested her cooperation in supplying names and information about other people. When she refused, she was threatened with not seeing her son again, that her husband would be harmed, and that she would be harassed again.
The international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Egypt as one of the worst jailers of journalists worldwide, and ranks it at 166 in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
The group said that since Sisi’s military coup in 2013, the country’s media has been undergoing a process of "Sisification”, with a witchhunt waged against opposition journalists and those who voice criticism online.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of 1 December 2020, there were 27 journalists imprisoned in Egypt for their work.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International denounced inhumane conditions in Egypt’s prisons, citing the shared experiences of 67 individuals imprisoned across the country, including 10 who died in custody and two who died shortly after being released.
The report said that prisoners were held in "unventilated, overcrowded cells with substandard sanitation”, and listed physical torture, medical neglect and sexual abuse among the conditions faced by detainees.
Magdy and Sayyad had been in custody for more than 16 months on charges of "spreading false news” and "joining a terrorist group”, as part of case No 488 of the year 2019, which is linked to the crackdown on the rare anti-government protests of March that year.
The release came a day after journalist Khaled Dawoud, who was imprisoned on the same charges, was also released.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International, which had led an international campaign for the couple’s freedom, welcomed the news of the three journalists’ release, but said that "they should not have spent a single day in prison in the first place”.
"We hope that the Egyptian authorities will continue to release arbitrarily detained journalists and the thousands of others behind bars whose only crime was peacefully exercising their rights,” Amnesty’s Egypt researcher Hussein Bayoumi said in a statement to Middle East Eye.
Magdy had recently been quoted by rights groups as saying that she had been a victim of physical abuse on several occasions while in custody in Al-Qanater women’s prison. According to a joint statement by a number of Egyptian rights organizations, Magdy’s lawyers submitted evidence proving the incidents of assault, including beatings and dragging, in her testimony before prosecutors on 19 January.
In the report, Magdy’s defense team said that on the evening of 29 November 2020, she was taken from her cell blindfolded to interrogation before an officer who requested her cooperation in supplying names and information about other people. When she refused, she was threatened with not seeing her son again, that her husband would be harmed, and that she would be harassed again.
The international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Egypt as one of the worst jailers of journalists worldwide, and ranks it at 166 in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
The group said that since Sisi’s military coup in 2013, the country’s media has been undergoing a process of "Sisification”, with a witchhunt waged against opposition journalists and those who voice criticism online.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of 1 December 2020, there were 27 journalists imprisoned in Egypt for their work.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International denounced inhumane conditions in Egypt’s prisons, citing the shared experiences of 67 individuals imprisoned across the country, including 10 who died in custody and two who died shortly after being released.
The report said that prisoners were held in "unventilated, overcrowded cells with substandard sanitation”, and listed physical torture, medical neglect and sexual abuse among the conditions faced by detainees.