Three of the 12 journalists arrested outside the Zeinhom morgue on Wednesday were re-detained on Friday for 15-days, a member with the Journalists Against Torture organisation told Daily News Egypt.
The journalists were rearrested pending investigations into a newly filed police report.
The journalists are Al-Shaab newspaper reporter Hamdy Al-Zaeem, freelance reporter Sherif Ashraf, and Mohamed Adly, a reporter for Al-Tahrir newspaper. They were arrested on Wednesday whilst covering the killings of nine Muslim Brotherhood leaders at the forensic authority and were released on Thursday, only to be re-arrested Friday evening. They are facing charges of working for Al Jazeera channel and belonging to a terrorist organisation.
“We have not received yet any notifications on journalists arrested on that day in order to assist them,” Press Syndicate head Yahia Qallash told Daily News Egypt.
Meanwhile, Journalists Against Torture organisation member Ashraf H told Daily News Egypt: “The three journalists were detained in the Sayeda Zeinab police station and there was an investigation by the state security on Thursday attended by the Tahrir newspaper lawyer and there was supposed to be another investigation on Saturday but no lawyers attended.”
He added: “The journalists were holding press passes from the electronic syndicate, which is not official. I believe this was behind their arrest.”
According to Ashraf, Journalists Against Torture depends on documenting cases of violations against journalists through field work, by being present in major events where journalists gather for protests or coverage. The organisation also has direct contact with the journalist affected and with the press syndicate freedoms committee.
Nine more journalists were stopped from covering incidents in the period of 30 June to 3 July, while others were arrested and released on the same day. The list includes journalists from prominent newspapers such as Al-Fagr, Al-Masriya, Veto, Al-Bawaba, Youm7, Masrawy as well as freelance photojournalists.
