“Run by my brothers who are on the run.” A statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Interior regarding the arrest of 6 journalists on the “Don’t Believe” platform, and the page responds.

On Thursday, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior issued a statement in which it spoke about the arrest of 6 journalists from the “Mtsadeqesh” online platform newsroom, accusing the platform of “dealing with broadcasting false news and distorting facts,” adding that the platform works “within the media committees of the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Egyptian Ministry of Interior said in a statement published on its official account on the “X” platform, previously Twitter: “Within the framework of following up on the plans of the terrorist Brotherhood group aiming to undermine the state of stability that the country enjoys by fabricating lies and promoting rumours, the existence of a page on the Internet entitled (Don’t Believe) that is unlicensed and managed from abroad, dealing with broadcasting false news and distorting facts, was monitored. The examination revealed that the page referred to is among the media committees of the terrorist Brotherhood group, and is managed by the Brotherhood. The fugitive abroad/ Abdul Rahman Shukri Ali Abdul Jalil Mansour, and he is assisted in the country by a number of Brotherhood members, who prepare these false and fabricated news and send them to the aforementioned person to publish them on the aforementioned page, in exchange for financial funding they receive from abroad,” according to the ministry’s statement.

The Egyptian Ministry of Interior added, “The procedures were codified and a number of 6 members of the aforementioned media committee were arrested, one of whom was registered with the Journalists Syndicate and the rest were not registered with the Syndicate. At the time, the Head of the Journalists Syndicate was informed of the arrest of the aforementioned journalist and the background to his arrest, and legal measures were taken.” In response to the Egyptian Ministry of Interior’s statement, the “Don’t Believe” platform denied in a post on its official Facebook page on Thursday that it was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or that it was managed from abroad, or that the page was managed by the fugitive Brotherhood member Abdel Rahman Mansour.

She explained in the statement: “No journalist in “Matsadeqesh” belongs to the Brotherhood, and no journalist working in “Matsadeqesh” has any connection to any political organization inside or outside Egypt,” explaining that what she described as the “allegation” contained in the Ministry of Interior’s statement is “untrue.” The platform said: “Over the course of 8 years, (Don’t Believe) published hundreds of corrections and audits of false statements and news promoted by parties and figures affiliated with the Brotherhood. It also refuted hundreds of rumors published by media outlets broadcasting from outside Egypt.”

The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate announced, 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 “Mtsadeqesh” platform for fact-checking in Egypt. This came after the “Mtsadeqesh” platform 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.”