For the second time this month, police have raided the Egypt offices of Al Jazeera Mubasher, located in Cairo’s Agouza district.
Devoted primarily to broadcasting live news events, Al Jazeera Mubasher is an affiliate of Qatar-based satellite news channel Al Jazeera.
Police personnel broke into the office without warning on Thursday, where they detained a director and producer working for the television channel, informed sources told Ahram Online.
The makeshift office, set up in the wake of the first police raid, contains recording equipment and computers, but is reportedly not equipped for making live television broadcasts.
The channel’s main office was shut down by authorities earlier this month. At the time, Egypt’s Ministry of Information justified the closure by citing the broadcaster’s alleged lack of proper documentation and licensing.
Many Egyptian critics, however, attribute the closure to the recent reactivation by Egypt’s ruling military council of a longstanding - and highly unpopular - emergency law, which grants the authorities sweeping powers of arrest.
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