Ibrahim Aref, the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian weekly newspaper El-Bayan, was arrested on Monday and accused of publishing false news.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that Aref was detained by police at the newspaper’s offices in Giza on the orders of Egypt’s prosecutor-general.
It followed the publication on the paper’s website of an article alleging that six prosecutors had been killed on the Cairo-Suez road last Friday (15 May).
Several judges and prosecutors have been attacked and killed in Egypt since the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, was sentenced to death along with other Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
Aref, who denied knowing about the article, said he was on vacation when it was published.
The paper’s editorial board have since issued a statement retracting the article, which was removed from the website. The statement also asked the prosecutor-general to show leniency. Aref was then given bail.
Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and north Africa programme coordinator, said: “In the event that journalists or news outlets make a mistake, there should be plenty of means of redress that do not involve throwing someone in prison.
“Furthermore, criminal accusations against a journalist are unlikely to solve any genuine security problems facing Egyptian authorities”.
Source: CPJ
