Egyptian journalist awaiting trial on terror charges is freed from jail on medical grounds

Egyptian photojournalist Esraa Taweel has been released from jail on medical grounds after spending more than six months behind bars awaiting trial on charges of belonging to a terrorist group and spreading false news with the aim of harming national unity.

Cairo’s Criminal Court announced Saturday that the 23-year-old would be confined to house arrest and allowed out only for medical treatment. Taweel sustained a serious leg injury when she was struck by a bullet during protests on the anniversary of the Egypt’s 2011 revolution. She now needs crutches to walk.

The arrest of journalists has been a recurrent theme in Egypt since the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

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A report issued by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists last week announced that no fewer than 23 journalists are currently jailed in Egypt, adding that “President Abdel Fattah Sisi continues to use the pretext of national security to clamp down on dissent.” A local rights group, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, says there are 60 jailed journalists.

According to Reporters Without Borders, Egypt is the second-worst nation for jailing journalists after China.

Most recently, freelance journalist and researcher Ismail Eskandarani was detained at an airport southeast of Cairo upon his return to the country from Berlin. Since his detention on Nov. 29, he awaits trial on similar charges of belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, as well as disseminating false news, his lawyers say.

Taweel had issued two letters from prison complaining of what she described as inhumane conditions.

“I am staying in a cell sized 5m x 3m, mostly full of cockroaches and insects. This is the only place we’re allowed to keep our food, and hang our clothes! It’s as if I am living in a kitchen inside a bathroom within a bed!” she wrote in a letter posted on social media through his sister.

“Days pass here as if they are a copy of each other, they are all similar. Sometimes I think, why do I eat? Why should I still survive, for what cause? I am starting to feel that life is dying within me, despite the fact that my biggest hope -- when I was at the state security premises -- is that I can see my mother and my family once again,” she said.

A photo of her walking into a courthouse hearing on crutches while shedding tears spread on social media last month, causing an uproar among activists.

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