Egyptian journalist charged with terrorism after entire newsroom's staff detained

Egyptian authorities have charged journalist Mohamed Ashraf with joining a terrorist group and spreading false news, days after security forces detained all six staff members of Matsadaash, an independent fact-checking and investigative outlet whose name means "don't believe." The six — Abdallah Qadri, Mohamed Ashraf, Mohamed Adel, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Helal — were rounded up over two days last week.

Authorities accused the staff of operating without a license and publishing false news on behalf of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a movement Egypt designated as a terrorist organization in 2013 after former president Mohamed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood figure, was removed in a coup. According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a rights group, the charges against Ashraf followed an overnight interrogation from 10pm to 8am that focused entirely on material Matsadaash had published. Ashraf is to be held for 15 days pending investigation; the whereabouts of the other five journalists remained unknown as of publication.

Abdelrahman Mansour, the outlet's co-founder, denied any link to the Muslim Brotherhood and described the arrests as one of the most serious attacks on journalism in Egypt's modern history. He said his colleagues had simply been doing their jobs — asking difficult questions and reporting on issues affecting people's lives — yet their homes were raided and all six were taken into custody.

On Saturday, dozens of journalists held a sit-in outside the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate's Cairo headquarters demanding the detainees' release, vowing to continue until they were freed. The syndicate said it would hold an emergency meeting and had petitioned the interior ministry and public prosecutor for the journalists' release and information on their whereabouts. More than 80 rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists, condemned the detentions.

The arrests came roughly a week after the United States waived human rights conditions tied to $320m in military aid to Egypt, citing Cairo's helpful role to US national security. Egypt ranks 169th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, and the journalists' syndicate estimates about 26 journalists are currently held in Egyptian prisons.