CAIRO (AP) – Egyptian authorities released an Al-Jazeera journalist on Saturday after more than four years in prison, his family lawyer said.
Mahmoud Hussein ran free from a police station on Saturday afternoon, a few days after a court ordered his parole pending investigation into allegations of publishing false information and belonging to a banned group, lawyer Gamal Eid said.
The lawyer said Hussein must report to a nearby police station twice a week.
The journalist’s daughter, el-Zahraa Hussein, confirmed the news in a Facebook post, saying her father had arrived home. Al-Jazeera also reported his release.
Hussein, an Egyptian who works for the Qatar-based satellite network, was detained at Cairo Airport in December 2016 when he arrived on a family vacation from Doha, the network said.
Since the impeachment of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Egyptian authorities and pro-government media have portrayed the Al-Jazeera network as Egypt’s national enemy because of its sympathy for Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood’s banned group.
The network, especially the Arab service, and its staff are embroiled in the wider political divide between Cairo and Doha. Egyptian authorities have blocked Al-Jazeera’s news website since 2017, along with dozens of other news sites deemed too critical of the government.
Hussein’s release came a month after Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain ended their dispute with Qatar, which began in 2017 and saw the four countries maintain their diplomatic, diplomatic and economic ties with energetic Qatar. disconnect.
The four countries accused Qatar of dealing with Iran and funding extremist groups in the region. Doha denied the charges. Al-Jazeera was central to the dispute. The four countries demanded its closure, among other measures, which Qatar rejected.
Egypt is at the bottom of the press freedom indices. It ranks third on the list of the world’s top journalist jailers, after China and Turkey, according to a report by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists released earlier in December.
Authorities have launched a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent in recent years, imprisoning thousands of people, mostly Morsi’s Muslim supporters, but also a number of well-known secular activists.