Journalists and activists have called for a protest at noon on Saturday in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo's Garden City to demand the release of journalist Shaimaa Adel, who is currently in detention in Sudan.
Adel, 25, who works for privately owned Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan, was arrested earlier this week while covering student protests in Khartoum. She was picked up at a cyber cafe in the Hajj Youssef district days after publishing a detailed report on the mass protests that erupted on 29 June in Sudan.
Egyptian human rights watchdogs condemned on Friday Adel's continued detention by the Sudanese police, after she was set to be released on Wednesday.
In a press statement, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information denounced the arrest, saying that Sudanese security forces confronted Adel using force.
The statement warned the Sudanese authorities against continuing to target journalists and activists to cover up the use of excessive violence against peaceful demonstrators.
The network called on the Sudanese regime, led by Omar al-Bashir, to “learn lessons from its neighboring [countries], and not give priority to security solutions over political ones.”
The International Center to Support Rights and Freedoms also condemned Adel's arrest. Its director, Ahmed Omar, said “Egyptian journalists are not outlaws or suspects who the Sudanese authorities can repeatedly arrest. They are doing their job covering the protests.”
Before moving to Al-Watan Adel worked at Al-Masry Al-Youm, where she covered the Arab Spring revolts extensively. She covered the Libyan uprising from Tripoli, and was injured while covering the Syrian uprising.
She was interviewed in the documentary film "Reporting … a revolution," which deals with journalists' experiences covering Egypt's 25 January uprising.
Adel is the second Egyptian reporter to be arrested while covering protests against soaring prices and austerity measures in Sudan. Last week, Sudanese authorities released Salma El-Wardany, an Egyptian reporter working for Bloomberg news.
