The team working on the 'Don't Believe' platform was arrested for verifying news in Egypt

The Egyptian Ministry of Interior arrested six journalists, believed to be the entire team working on a platform for verifying information and news via social media applications, on the grounds that they were accused of publishing fabricated and false news and belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as a terrorist group in Egypt, while international and local human rights organizations and the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate called for their immediate release and to stop chasing and intimidating journalists.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Interior issued about two days after the arrest of the six journalists, the investigating authorities began taking legal measures against the journalists who work on the “Don’t Believe” page, which is concerned with verifying news.

The Ministry explained that the page is “unlicensed and managed from abroad,” and that, according to its investigations, it is affiliated with the media committees of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Mtsaddiksh” denied these accusations in a statement published on Thursday, and said that its archive includes hundreds of corrections to information published by entities and personalities affiliated with the Brotherhood.

The platform also denied, in a statement on Thursday, that it was managed from outside Egypt, and said that all members of its team are Egyptians and reside inside the country, and that data on its accounts on social media platforms indicate that it is managed from Egypt.

"Mtsadakish" also denied that its founder was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or wanted in connection with cases, as stated in the Interior Ministry's statement. It said that three of its journalists underwent a security check about three years ago, which, according to the platform, did not prove that they had links to political groups or received funding from abroad.

The platform also rejected the accusation that its six journalists received funding from abroad, and said that they receive salaries for their work according to legal contracts, which are disbursed through the Egyptian banking system.

The Ministry did not announce the names of those arrested or their places of detention in its statement, but lawyers say that in similar cases, the Supreme State Security Prosecution initiates an emergency investigation if accused of belonging to a banned group.

On Monday evening, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an Egyptian human rights organization, and the “Don’t Believe” platform announced the arrest of two of the platform’s journalists, before reports of the arrest of four others continued, bringing the number of arrested journalists to six, who are the entire strength of the platform’s newsroom, according to the initiative’s statement.

According to the initiative, the process of arresting the journalists began after security forces in civilian clothes raided the homes of four of them in several Egyptian governorates, while two others were arrested on a street in Cairo.

The initiative said that the security forces seized the journalists’ phones and computers, and that they refused to inform them of the prosecution’s warrants for arrest and inspection, and did not disclose the reasons for arresting the journalists.

“Don’t believe it” said that the search of Muhammad Ashraf Abu Amira’s house witnessed the breaking of a number of the house’s contents and the destruction of some property.

The platform and the journalists' lawyers called on the authorities at the time to reveal the reasons for the journalists' arrest and their places of detention, and to enable them to communicate with their lawyers and families.

For its part, the Journalists Syndicate in Egypt on Wednesday submitted a report to the Public Prosecutor and a complaint to the Minister of Interior, demanding the release of the “Mtsadeqesh” journalists, and revealing the circumstances of their detention.

A high-ranking source in the Journalists Syndicate explained to the BBC that the campaign to arrest the six journalists, who are the entire body of this platform inside Egypt, is “unprecedented,” especially as it comes without revealing a specific reason.

The source added that his attempts to release the six journalists have not found an echo so far.

The union demanded the immediate release of the six journalists and all detained journalists.

The arrest of the six journalists sparked condemnations from international human rights and journalistic organizations, including the International Committee for the Protection of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, the Samir Kassir Foundation, the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, and the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies.

These organizations joined calls for the release of the six journalists, an end to what they described as the targeting of the “Don’t Believe” platform, and the release of journalists detained or imprisoned in Egypt because of their work.

“Don’t Believe” is a digital platform specialized in journalistic investigations and verifying news and information. It was established in 2018 with the aim of combating false news.

Over the past years, the platform has published investigations and materials to verify circulating information about a number of controversial issues in Egypt, relying in its work on open sources.

One of the most prominent files covered by the platform was the investigations related to the private plane that took off from Egypt and was stopped in Zambia in 2023, carrying millions of dollars and bullion of gold.

In August 2023, security forces arrested journalist Karim Asaad, a member of the “Don’t Believe” team, after raiding his home in Cairo, before he was later released.

The initiative said at the time that security forces confiscated phones and computers, and forced Asaad to log into the platform’s Facebook account and delete posts.

Lubna Darwish, advocacy director at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which is responsible for defending journalists, told the BBC that the arrest of the “Mtsaddaksh” platform journalists is exceptional, as they represent the platform’s entire work team, in addition to being systematic and being implemented simultaneously in several governorates at the same time.

Darwish confirms that the six journalists were unable to communicate with their families or lawyers, and their places of detention are still unknown.

She added: "Although the Egyptian Constitution prohibits imprisonment in publishing cases, it has become systematic in Egypt. The six journalists join about 20 male and female journalists currently imprisoned, some of whom are not unionized, which represents a restriction of their freedom of expression and an attack on the right of all Egyptians to access correct information."

The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate does not allow electronic journalists to join it unless their platforms are registered and have a license from the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, whose journalistic law defines only the person registered with the Journalists Syndicate.