In an unprecedented incident since its formation in 1941, head of the Press Syndicate Yahia Qalash, head of the Freedom Committee Khaled Al-Balshy, and Secretary of the Syndicate spent a night in police custody after refusing to pay a bail of EGP 10,000 after investigation by the general prosecution over charges of harbouring wanted suspects and publishing false news.
The three were escorted from the prosecution headquarters after investigations that spanned from Sunday evening until the early hours of Monday morning at the Qasr Al-Nil Police station where they are still detained.
On Sunday, they were interrogated by the prosecution on charges of hosting Yanair Gate’s editor-in-chief Amr Badr and journalist Mahmoud Al-Saqa inside the syndicate building last month.
Badr and Al-Saqa were arrested from inside the syndicate on 1 May, causing an uproar in civil rights movement, leading the syndicate to call for the sacking of the Minister of Interior.
