Egypt.. A report from the Journalists' Syndicate regarding the detention of the entire editorial team of the "Matsdqs" platform

- The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate announced on Wednesday that it has filed a complaint with the Ministry of Interior and a report to the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, demanding the release of six journalists who make up the editorial team of the prominent fact-checking platform "Motsadaksh" in Egypt. The "Motsadaksh" platform had previously announced on Wednesday that "the entire editorial team in its newsroom" has been detained, considering what happened to be "an unprecedented development for the platform, raising serious questions about the nature of the actions taken against an entire newsroom and its journalists, without any clear announcement so far regarding the reasons for this escalation or its legal basis."

No official statements or announcements regarding the incident have been issued so far. The Journalists Syndicate stated in a statement that it "received complaints from lawyers and colleagues indicating the arrest of six journalists from the Motsadaksh platform, one of whom is a member of the syndicate, in violation of the guarantees provided in the Syndicate Law and the texts of the law and the constitution."

The syndicate clarified that it confirmed in its report that "the six colleagues: Abdullah Qadri, Mohamed Ashraf, Mohamed Adel, Islam Barakat, Mohamed Mahmoud, and Omar Hilal, were arrested in the past two days from their homes and taken to an unknown location." The syndicate demanded at the end of its report "the necessity of revealing the location of the colleagues' detention and the justifications for their arrest, and their immediate release, or the determination of the time and place of the investigation and the charges against the colleagues, so that the syndicate can attend with them if they are referred for investigation."

In a statement regarding the incident, the "Motsadaksh" platform stated that "journalists Mohamed Mahmoud and Omar Hilal have been arrested, bringing the total number of journalists from the platform who have been arrested in recent hours to six journalists." It added that this comes after "the arrest, since Monday evening, of four other journalists from the platform, namely Mohamed Ashraf, Abdullah Qadri, Islam Barakat, and Mohamed Adel, with the continued absence of official information regarding their places of detention and the legal actions taken against them."

It continued in its statement: "We affirm that the continued detention of journalists without clear reasons or the provision of the legal guarantees stipulated is unacceptable, and requires the immediate disclosure of the circumstances of their detention. Moreover, the detention of the entire editorial team does not only affect the journalists themselves, but 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 stated that its lawyers represent all journalists of "Motsadaksh," noting that so far "their place of detention remains unknown and they have not been allowed to communicate with their families or their defense team."

It was pointed out that "this is not the first time that the authorities have detained one of the journalists from Motsadash without a declared legal reason; as one of the platform's editors was previously arrested in August 2023, after a raid on his home, and was held for 48 hours by a security agency before being released." According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an organization that has been working to promote and protect fundamental rights and freedoms in Egypt since 2002, "Motsadash" is an independent platform specialized in news verification and fact-checking, operating since 2018, and its activities include debunking false news in Egypt and the Arab countries by a group of independent journalists and researchers.