Egypt.. A report from the Journalists Syndicate regarding the detention of “the entire editorial team” of the “Don’t Believe” platform

The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate said, on Wednesday, that it had submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Interior and a report to the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, demanding the release of 6 journalists, who constitute the editorial team of the prominent fact-checking platform “Mtsadeqsh” in Egypt. The “Mtsadeqsh” platform had announced earlier on Wednesday the detention of “the entire editorial team in its newsroom,” considering that what happened “is an unprecedented development for the platform, and raises serious questions about the nature of the measures taken against an entire newsroom and its journalists, without a clear announcement yet about the reasons for this escalation or the legal basis for it.”

No official statements or statements have been issued about the incident yet. The Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that it “received complaints from lawyers and colleagues stating that 6 journalists on the Matsadakish platform, one of whom holds membership in the Syndicate, were arrested in violation of the guarantees contained in the Syndicate’s law and the provisions of the law and the Constitution.”

The union explained that it confirmed in its report that “the six colleagues: Abdullah Qadri, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Adel, Islam Barakat, Muhammad Mahmoud, and Omar Hilal, were arrested during the past two days from their homes and were taken to an unknown destination.” At the conclusion of its report, the union called for “the necessity of revealing the place of detention of colleagues and the justifications for their arrest, and their immediate release, or specifying the date and place of the investigation and the charges against the colleagues, so that the union can attend with them if they are referred for investigation.”

In a statement about the incident, the “Don’t Believe” platform said, “Journalists Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Hilal were arrested, bringing the number of platform journalists arrested during the past hours to six.” She added that this comes after "the arrest, since Monday evening, of four other journalists from the platform, namely Muhammad Ashraf, Abdullah Qadri, Islam Barakat, and Muhammad Adel, with the continued absence of official information regarding their places of detention and the legal measures taken against them."

She continued in her statement: “We affirm that the continued detention of journalists without announcing clear reasons or providing the prescribed legal guarantees is unacceptable, and requires immediate disclosure of the circumstances of their detention. The detention of the entire editorial team does not affect journalists alone, but rather threatens the ability of an independent newsroom to perform its work, and deprives the public of its right to know.” In a related context, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said that its lawyers represent all of the “Mtsadeqesh” journalists, noting that until now, “their place of detention remains unknown and they have not been allowed to communicate with their families or the team of defense lawyers.”

She pointed out that "this is not the first time that the authorities have detained one of the Metsadeqsh journalists without a declared legal reason. One of the platform's editors had previously been arrested in August 2023, after a raid on his house, and he was then detained for 48 hours by a security agency before he was released." According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an organization that has been working, according to its official website, to promote and protect basic rights and freedoms in Egypt since 2002, “Don’t Suck” is an independent platform specialized in news verification and auditing, and has been operating since 2018 and its activity includes refuting false news in Egypt and Arab countries by a group of independent journalists and researchers.