Detained Egypt Al Jazeera contributor denied medication: CPJ

NEW YORK: A freelance Egyptian journalist who worked for pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera and was arrested on false news and terrorism charges is being denied medication in custody, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

Aamer Abdelmonem is among at least 27 journalists the CPJ says have been imprisoned in Egypt in relation to their work, several of them for Qatar-based Al Jazeera.

Egypt labels the channel as a mouthpiece for the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a charge Qatar denies.

"Egyptian journalist Aamer Abdelmonem is already in failing health, and to detain him during a global pandemic blatantly endangers his life," CPJ's Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said in a statement dated Monday.

"Egyptian authorities must immediately release Abdelmonem, drop all the charges against him, and grant him the medical attention he needs."

On December 31, the journalist's daughter, Mariam Aamer, told news website Darb that prison authorities had denied her multiple requests to deliver insulin, eye medication and prescription glasses to her father, who is a diabetic and has cataracts in both eyes.

Abdelmonem was arrested in his Cairo home on December 19.

The following day, state prosecutors charged him with spreading false news and assisting a terrorist organisation, and remanded him in custody pending trial.

Following his arrest, state security officers interrogated Abdelmonem about his recent work for Al Jazeera and his former work as the editorial director of the independent newspaper Al-Shaab, which was banned in 2014.

In his recent articles on Al Jazeera's website, Abdelmonem criticised the Egyptian government's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In July last year, another Egyptian journalist who had worked for Al Jazeera, Mohamed Monir, 65, died of the novel coronavirus, his daughter said, days after he was released from detention on charges of "membership of a terrorist group, dissemination of false news and improper use of social networks".

Since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office in 2014, his government has cracked down heavily on any display of dissent.

Those suspected of supporting the government of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, whose ouster Sisi led as army chief in 2013, have been particular targets.