Qasr Al-Nil Misdemeanor Court adjourned on Saturday the trial of Press Syndicate head Yehia Qalash and two board members, Gamal Abdel Reheim and Khaled Al-Balshy, to 8 October.
The Press Syndicate leaders are being tried on charges of spreading false news and harbouring Yanair’s gate chief editor Amr Badr and journalist Mahmoud Al-Saqa, who were wanted suspects. Badr was released earlier this month after he was arrested in May.
The trio were summoned to investigations in May after security forces stormed the headquarters of the Press Syndicate to arrest Badr and Al-Saqa. The incident was heavily criticised by rights organisations and caused several protests that condemned the storming of the syndicate.
The Press Syndicate held a general assembly after the storming incident in which they agreed on two main demands: the sacking of Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel Ghaffar and a presidential apology from President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.
The syndicate leaders spent a night in custody after they refused to pay EGP 10,000 bail. They consider their trial a manipulative act that aims to depict the storming incident as a “normal security measure”.
