Egipto - The press, like unions, under fire

On 22 July, Abu Bakr Khalar, founder of the Electronic Media Syndicate, was arrested at the offices of the General Syndicate for Press, Printing and Advertising. Since then, Abu Bakr Khalar has been kept behind bars. He is accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, promoting its ideology and obtaining funds from Qatar to this end, charges that he fully denies. The Electronic Media Syndicate was created in 2011 and is affiliated to the independent trade union centre EFITU. In December, it received the backing of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which drew attention to the fact that, after China, Egypt was the country that imprisoned the biggest number of journalists in 2015.