Egyptian authorities on Saturday freed an Al-Jazeera journalist after he
spent more than four years in detention, his family lawyer said.
Mahmoud Hussein walked free from a police station Saturday afternoon, a
few days after a court ordered his conditional release pending
investigations into charges of publishing false information and
belonging to a banned group, lawyer Gamal Eid said.
Today,
we are pleased he is finally reunited with his family, after being
robbed four years from his life and deprived of his fundamental rights,”
the Al-Jazeera network said in a statement. The lawyer said Hussein
will have to report to a nearby police station twice a week. The
journalist’s daughter, el-Zahraa Hussein, confirmed the news in a
Facebook post, saying her father had arrived home. Al-Jazeera also
reported his release.
Hussein, an
Egyptian working for the Qatar-based satellite network, was detained at
the Cairo airport in December 2016, when he arrived on a family vacation
from Doha, the network said. Since the 2013 ouster of Muslim
Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, Egyptian authorities and
pro-government media have portrayed the Al-Jazeera network as Egypt’s
national enemy for its sympathy toward Islamists, especially the
outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
The
network, especially its Arabic service, and its staff have been
embroiled in the wider political rift between Cairo and Doha. Egyptian
authorities have blocked Al-Jazeera’s news website since 2017, along
with dozens of other news sites deemed too critical of the government.
Hussein’s release came a month after Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates and Bahrain ended their dispute with Qatar, which started
in 2017 and included the four countries severing their diplomatic
diplomatic and economic ties with energy-rich Qatar.
The
four countries accused Qatar of cozying up to Iran and financing
extremist groups in the region. Doha denied the charges. Al-Jazeera was
at the center of the dispute. The four nations demanded its closure
among other measures, which Qatar rejected. (AP)
