CAIRO, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Human Rights Watch called Wednesday for Egypt to drop charges against an al-Jazeera journalist making a documentary about torture in the country.
Last Saturday, police detained Huwaida Taha Mitwalli, a journalist for London's Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper who was working on the al-Jazeera film, and charged her with "practicing activities that harm the national interest of the country" and "possessing and giving false pictures about the internal situation in Egypt that could undermine the dignity of the country."
Husain Abd al-Ghani, al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Cairo, told reporters videotapes seized during her arrest showed documentary reenactments of torture in Egyptian detention facilities.
However, Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement the government was on the wrong track.
"The government should prosecute officials responsible for torturing detainees in Egypt, not the journalists who report on them," Whitson said, adding the charges "send a chilling message to anyone who dares to report on torture in Egypt."
