A Cairo misdemeanor court acquitted Wednesday a journalist and four others charged with protesting without a permit in February, on the third anniversary of the "Battle of the Camel."
They were also charged with using violence, obstructing traffic, and terrorising citizens.
The acquitted journalist, Eslam Khaled, was proved by police investigations to not belong to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and that he was only doing his job by covering the protest, Khaled’s lawyer Ali Soliman said.
Soliman, in a statement to the press, said that police examined Khaled’s laptop and found that he was a member of the “Yes to the Constitution” campaign, which called for voting for the amended constitution following president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster.
On 2 February 2011, prior to Mubarak’s ouster, 11 anti-regime protesters were killed in Tahrir Square when pro-Mubarak forces attacked them on horses and camels.
This December, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international press watchdog, ranked Egypt among the 10 worst jailers of journalists in 2014.
The CPJ said that the number of journalists in Egypt’s prisons “more than doubled to at least 12,” in 2014.
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