Editor-in-chief of Egyptian private newspaper Youm7 released on LE10,000 bail

El-Sayed Gamal El-Din , Ahram Online , Wednesday 8 Jul 2015

Khaled Salah and Youm7 writer Mohammed Roshdy are accused of insulting former prime minister and 2012 presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq

Youm7
A Snapshot of Youm7 frontpage in 2012

A Cairo court ordered the release of editor-in-chief of private newspaper Youm7 Khaled Salah and staff writer Mohammed Roshdy on LE10,000 bail each pending an inquiry in charges they insulted former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq.

Shafiq accused Salah and Roshdy of libel and defamation in relation to an article the paper published in April 2015 that claimed that Mubarak's last prime minister, who has been residing in the UAE since 2013, was scared of returning to Egypt and described him as a "failure student".

The article was published shorly after Shafiq announced that the party he founded in 2012, the Egyptian Patriotic Movement, will win a majority in parliamentary elections, making him a candidate to become prime minister.

In a separate case in June, the interior ministry filed a complaint against Salah and editor of Youm7 El-Sayed Falah for publishing false news, inciting fear and causing threats to public security. Both editors were released on LE10,000 bail each.

Youm7 criticised the ministry's complaint, calling it an "excessive" measure against journalists.  

In early June, 300 journalists staged a protest at the Journalists' Syndicate in Downtown Cairo against the imprisonment of their colleagues, criticising what they described as the stifling of press freedoms in Egypt.

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