Pakistan Press Foundation is concerned over the arrest of the editors of Yanair | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Pakistan Press Foundation is concerned over the arrest of the editors of Yanair

Pakistan Press Foundation

Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) in a letter to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt, expressed concern over the arrest of journalists Amr Badr and Mahmoud al-Sakka.

PPF Secretary General Owais Aslam Ali in his letter urged the government of Egypt to stop persecuting journalists for doing their jobs and investigate this violent raid while releasing Amr Badr and Mahmoud al-Sakka.

According to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), police raided the Journalists’ Syndicate in Cairo, where Amr Badr and Mahmoud al-Sakka were staging a sit-in protest, and arrested them. The prosecutors ordered the journalists detained for 15 days of investigation on charges of “spreading false news,” “endangering national security,” and “organizing illegal protests,” according to news reports.

Badr and al-Sakka, the editors of the news website Yanair, which is often critical of the government, had taken refuge inside the Journalists’ Syndicate and were staging a sit-in protest when 50 policemen in civilian clothes stormed the syndicate, assaulted its private security officers, broke furniture in the lobby and arrested the two.

The Interior Ministry denied using any kind of force in the arrest, saying the journalists peacefully turned themselves in to eight police officers at the syndicate, and that that police had followed the law in implementing an arrest warrant.

Badr said that authorities were targeting him and al-Sakka for their criticism of the government, including its recent decision to give Saudi Arabia control of two Red Sea islands. And they have been hiding, fearing arrest, since at least April 22, when police raided their homes before dawn.