Five employees of Egypt's Mehwar TV channel were held hostage for several hours late Friday by Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo’s Helwan district, the channel's editor-in-chief, Beshir Hassan, has said.

Police eventually released the hostages and arrested the armed kidnappers, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported.

In a phone call to El-Balad TV channel, Hassan said the abductors contacted the channel and said the crew would be in danger if Mehwar did not air a live video of a pro-Morsi protest in Helwan.

Hassan said the channel complied with the abductors’ threats and aired 15 minutes of the protest before the battery of the Live View, used to transmit the footage to the channel, died.

The protest had a maximum of 200 people, Hassan stated.

Ahram Online could not reach a Brotherhood spokesperson for a comment on the incident.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies held protests on Friday to commemorate the killing of around 700 people during the police’s dispersal of two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo and Giza on 14 August. Turnout at the protests was lower than expected.

Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, have been arrested in recent days.



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