Four al-Jazeera journalists detained since December for allegedly aiding a ‘terrorist organisation’ (the Muslim Brotherhood) were about to go on trial as PN went to press. Another half-a-dozen Egyptian journalists remained in prison.
Samah Ibrahim, a reporter for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice newspaper, received a one-year sentence on 17 March. She was convicted of public order offences allegedly committed while photographing a Muslim Brotherhood protest in Cairo in January.
The chief editor of Freedom and Justice, Adel Al-Ansary, chief editor of the FJP newspaper, said in February that Ibrahim was suffering from a nervous breakdown.