CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the release of an Al-Jazeera journalist who had been detained since 2016 on allegations of spreading false news and defaming Egypt’s reputation.
Mahmoud Hussein, an Egyptian journalist working for the Qatar-based satellite network, was detained at the Cairo airport in December 2016 when he arrived on a family vacation from Doha. No official charges were ever raised against him and Hussein didn’t stand trial.
“This case shows the misuse of pretrial detention as a form of punishment in Egypt,” said Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. He said there are at least 20,000 people currently in detention without charges in Egypt for political reasons. Hundreds of them have already exceeded the legal two-year pretrial term, he said.
Since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, the Al-Jazeera network has been portrayed as Egypt’s national enemy for its sympathy toward Islamists. Many of its reporters have been arrested on grounds of spreading lies and supporting an insurgent group — a reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organization.
Doha-based Al-Jazeera reported the release of Hussein on its website Thursday, saying Hussein “was arrested without formal charges and kept in prison for 881 days.”
His daughter, Az-Zahra Hussein, said on Facebook that her father will be released “with precautionary measures” — likely meaning he’ll have to report regularly to police — and that he’s soon to be transferred from prison to a police station.
Under Egyptian law, Hussein must be released within 24 hours, said Eid.
A Section on 05/24/2019