Cairo’s Criminal Court accepted on Thursday the prosecution’s appeal against the release of Mona Mahmoud Ibrahim, also known as Um Zubidaha, who was accused of spreading false news, and renewed her detention for 45 days.
Um Zubidaha has been released on probationary measures last Tuesday and the lawyer requested bail instead, before the prosecution appealed the decision.
The elderly Egyptian woman was arrested in March in pre-trial detention on charges including “publishing and broadcasting false news that could harm the country’s national interests,” and belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood group.
She was quoted in an interview with the BBC, saying that her daughter had not been seen since April 2017 after being arrested by security forces and that she was tortured in detention.
The controversial report, titled “The shadow over Egypt”, was aired on 23 February 2018 and included interviews with families of alleged victims of torture and enforced disappearances by security forces.
Her daughter, who was reported to be one of the victims, was interviewed days after the report’s release by a prominent Egyptian TV host. She denied claims that she had been kidnapped and tortured by security forces and said that she had not spoken to her mother in months.
