CAIRO – Egypt has accused detained journalists from the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera television network of belonging to a “terrorist” group, saying they had ties with the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.
It’s not immediately clear if all three journalists face the same accusation, the first prosecutors have brought against journalists since the government designated the Brotherhood a “terrorist” group last week.
Prosecutors had earlier ordered the detention of three journalists with Al-Jazeera’s English channel, including Australian Peter Greste, after their arrest on Sunday in a Cairo hotel.
The move comes six months into a crackdown by the military-installed government on the movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, which has extended to media viewed as biased for the Islamists.
The prosecution accused the suspects of “belonging to a terrorist group,” in a statement.
A lawyer for Mohammed Fahmy, the Canadian-Egyptian bureau chief for Jazeera English in Cairo, said his client had been accused of Brotherhood membership.
Fahmy, a well-known journalist in Cairo who previously worked with CNN, has no known ties with the Brotherhood.
“It’s insane. Mohammed has nothing related to the Muslim Brotherhood, neither to their ideology or any aspect of the Brotherhood,” his brother Sherif Fahmy said.
