Two Egyptian journalists were arrested on Sunday after Egyptian security forces stormed the Egyptian Press Syndicate’s Cairo headquarters, according to eyewitnesses.
Syndicate members had been holding a sit-in held in solidarity with detained journalists and calling for their release.
“The sit-in was organised by the families and friends of several journalists currently in [police] detention,” Ahmed Abdel-Aziz, an Egyptian reporter, told Anadolu Agency late Sunday.
According to Abdel-Aziz and other eyewitnesses, dozens of plainclothes policemen stormed the syndicate headquarters and detained journalists Amr Badr and Mahmoud Al-Sakka.
In a statement, Khaled Al-Balshi, head of the syndicate’s freedom committee, described the incident as “an assault unprecedented in the syndicate’s history”.