Rights groups slam France for arresting journalist reporting on Egypt intel op

France has come under fire from rights groups for undermining press freedom following the arrest of an investigative journalist who reported on Egypt’s use of intelligence supplied by France, which resulted in extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Western Desert between 2016 and 2018.

According to AP, the investigative news outlet Disclose said that reporter Ariane Lavrilleux was detained over a report released two years ago documenting how French military intelligence had been misused by Egyptian authorities to target smugglers on the Libyan border to kill civilians.

[EN]🚨 Search underway at the home of @Disclose_ngo journalist @AriaLavrilleux. Police officers from the intelligence service (DGSI) have taken our journalist into custody.

This is a new, unacceptable attack on the confidentiality of sources. pic.twitter.com/SBMFzuXpin

— Disclose (@Disclose_ngo) September 19, 2023

As a result, the report led to the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) opening an investigation in July 2022 into Disclose’s work, which it said was “compromising national defense secrets and revealing information that could lead to the identification of a protected agent.”

In a statement yesterday, Disclose condemned the arrest as “an unacceptable attack on the confidentiality of sources,” while the Société des Journalistes at France Télévisions and Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) also condemned the attack on press freedoms. “We fear that the DGSI’s actions will undermine the secrecy of the sources,” RSF said.

#France🇫🇷: RSF condemns the taking into custody of journalist @AriaLavrilleux and the search of her home & equipment as part of an investigation into compromising national security. We fear that the actions of the intelligence service DGSI undermine the secrecy of sources. https://t.co/tv1KCMsSUs pic.twitter.com/YAhBvv6Qbb

— RSF (@RSF_inter) September 19, 2023

Disclose revealed that police officers from the DGSI detained Lavrilleux yesterday and searched her property in an attempt to find sources of the damning leak, which relied on classified defence documents implicating the French military in at least 19 air strikes against civilians between 2016 and 2018.

The counter-intelligence operation, codenamed Sirli began in February 2016 during the government of former President Francois Hollande and continued despite the concerns expressed by both French military intelligence (DRM) and the airforce about the way Egypt was using the intelligence, which was reportedly for counter-terrorism purposes and not to target non-combatants.

Lavrilleux’s lawyer, Virginie Marquet, has warned that the crackdown “risks seriously undermining the confidentiality of journalists’ sources”, telling AFP that her client had “only revealed information of public interest.”

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