Reporters Without Borders condemns arrest of Egyptian editor

A leading media watchdog group condemned on Thursday the arrest this week of the editor of one of Egypt's few remaining independent news outlets, and urged authorities to immediately release her and drop all charges.

A leading media watchdog group condemned on Thursday the arrest this week of the editor of one of Egypt's few remaining independent news outlets, and urged authorities to immediately release her and drop all charges. Nora Younis, editor of the al-Manassa news website, was arrested Wednesday after security forces raided her office in Cairo. She faces charges of managing a news website without an operating license, al-Manassa said.

After spending the night in police custody, Younis was expected to appear before prosecutors on Thursday, the outlet also reported. "By means of constant administrative stalling, the authorities prevented Al-Manassa from legalizing its situation, so that the lack of an official permit to operate became a pretext for judicial proceedings," Reporters Without Borders said.

The urged Egyptian authorities to "stop persecuting independent media" Media outlets are required to have permission to work in Egypt, but withholding accreditation is often used as a pretext to silence reporting the state sees as critical. Al-Manassa has said in previous statements that it applied for a license in October 2018 but has not received a response. Younis is a rights activist, journalist and blogger. She formerly worked as a managing editor at Al-Masry Al-Youm, Egypt's most popular daily.

Younis founded Al-Manassa in 2015, but authorities blocked the website in 2017, one of hundreds of sites banned or blocked in recent years. The outlet, however, continued to publish through mirror sites. Egypt's government, under general-turned-president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, has overseen an unprecedented political crackdown, silencing critics and jailing thousands.

In recent years, Egypt has imprisoned dozens of reporters and occasionally expelled some foreign journalists. It remains among the world's worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.