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Egypt Detains a Top Journalist as Fears of a Crackdown Grow

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Egypt’s military intelligence detained one of the country’s leading investigative journalists and human rights advocates on Sunday, a move that comes amid international scrutiny on Cairo over a Russian airline crash.

The detention of Hossam Bahgat, 36, has been widely regarded as a signal of the Egyptian government’s ongoing clampdown on its critics.

The circumstances of Bahgat’s detention remain unclear. He appeared for interrogation by the military intelligence in Cairo on Sunday morning. The independent news website Mada Masr, where Bahgat is a contributor, reported that the journalist had been handed over to military prosecutors. Bahgat also told his outlet that he may face charges of publishing “false information that harms national interests.”

As a journalist, Bahgat is known for meticulous investigative reporting for Mada Masr, a respected English-Arabic organization founded in 2013. Prior to entering journalism, Bahgat was a giant of Egypt’s human rights movement. In 2002, he founded the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the country’s premier rights group.

“Hossam Bahgat is being formally charged by the military prosecution. He still doesn’t know what charges & has asked for lawyers,” tweeted Heba Morayef, the current associate director of EIPR.

“We are waiting outside the military court complex,” she said in an update published later on Sunday evening. “Hossam’s lawyers have all gone in, no phones allowed so updates once they come out.”

Bahgat has published a series of detailed exposés about the military judiciary that is now holding him in custody. His most recent piece explores a secret military trial of 26 officers accused of plotting a coup. Last year he wrote one of the most illuminating reports to date on Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the Sinai-based militant group that later declared itself part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). The militant group claims it brought down the Russian passenger plane that crashed in Sinai on October 31, killing all 224 people on board.

There is mounting concern that a smuggled bomb may have exploded inside the plane. A member of the multi-nation committee investigating the crash told Reuters on Sunday that investigators are “90% sure” that a sound picked up by plane’s flight recorders was caused by a bomb.

Egypt’s President, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, is currently facing international scrutiny over the Russian plane crash. Since coming to power in the aftermath of a military takeover, Sisi has presented himself as a champion of counterterrorism. Critics argue that the government’s campaign against political opposition has been detrimental to the fight against the insurgents.

“The arrest of Hossam Bahgat today is yet another nail in the coffin for freedom of expression in Egypt,” Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, said in a statement. “The Egyptian military cannot continue to consider itself above the law and immune from criticism.”

See Photos From the Russian Plane Crash and Its Aftermath

An Egyptian soldier stands guard as emergency workers unload bodies of victims from the crash of a Russian aircraft over the Sinai peninsula from a police helicopter to ambulances at Kabrit military airport, some 20 miles north of Suez, Egypt, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015. A Russian Metrojet plane crashed Saturday morning in a mountainous region in the Sinai after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people aboard. Officials said the pilot had reported a technical problem and was looking to make an emergency landing before radio contact with air traffic controllers went dead. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
An Egyptian soldier stands guard as emergency workers unload bodies of victims from the crash of a Russian aircraft over the Sinai peninsula from a police helicopter to ambulances at the military airport in Kabrit, Egypt, on Oct. 31, 2015Amr Nabil—AP
Debris from crashed Russian jet lies strewn across the sand at the site of the crash in the Sinai region in Egypt on Oct. 31, 2015.
Debris from crashed Russian jet lies strewn across the sand at the site of the crash in the Sinai region in Egypt on Oct. 31, 2015. EPA
Russian plane crash site in central Sinai, Egypt
Wreckage at the site where a Russian aircraft crashed in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula near El Arish city, on Nov. 1, 2015.Maxim Grigoryev—ITAR-TASS/Corbis
epa05004879 Ambulances transporting the bodies of the victims of the Russian passenger flight crash arrive at the Zeinhom morgue, Cairo, Egypt, 31 October 2015. According to reports the Egyptian Government has dispatched more than 45 ambulances to the crash site of the Kogalymavia Metrojet Russian passenger jet, which disappeared from raider after requesting an emergency landing early 31 October, crashing in the mountainous al-Hasanah area of central Sinai. The black box has been recovered at the site. Authorities believe all onboard perished in the crash. EPA/MOHAMMED HOSSAM
Ambulances transporting the bodies of the victims of the Russian passenger flight crash arrive at the Zeinhom morgue in Cairo on Oct. 31, 2015.Mohammed Hossam—EPA
People arrange candles to make a cross to commemorate 224 victims of a Russian airliner which crashed in Egypt, on the stairs of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, Russia, November 1, 2015. An Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia under the brand name Metrojet, carrying 224 passengers crashed into a mountainous area of Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday shortly after losing radar contact near cruising altitude, killing all aboard. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a day of national mourning for Sunday. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov - RTX1U9UO
People arrange candles to make a cross to commemorate 224 victims of a Russian airliner which crashed in Egypt, on the stairs of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on Nov. 1, 2015. Maxim Shemetov—Reuters

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