A Cairo correspondent for a Catholic newspaper has been expelled from Egypt without explanation.
Remy Pigaglio, a journalist for French Catholic newspaper, La Croix, and the current affairs radio station, RTL, was refused entry into Egypt on landing at Cairo airport on 23 May. Mr Pigaglio who was returning from a holiday in France, has been based in Cairo since August 2014. His visa and Egyptian press card were valid.
"France deeply regrets this decision by the Egyptian authorities," French Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, Romain Nadal, said on Wednesday. The decision to expel Mr Pigaglio defies freedom of expression and the freedom of press worldwide, he added.
After being held for 30 hours by Egyptian authorities in the international area of the airport, Mr Pigaglio was put on a return flight to France. The French embassy is reported to have attempted to intervene on his behalf, to no avail.
In a statement issued by La Croix the correspondent said he was not questioned or mistreated.
“We urge the authorities to explain why this journalist was denied entry,” said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of Reporters Without Borders’ Middle East desk.
“Given the circumstances, everything suggests that this was designed to intimidate all the foreign correspondents based in Cairo. It is a very worrying signal for the foreign media, to say the least,” she added.
"It appears that Egypt's intelligence service was behind the decision," La Croix's publishing director Guillaume Goubert told AFP news agency.
A security source at Cairo airport said Pigaglio had been deported because a security agency reported that he had taken "actions that harm Egypt and threaten its security". The source gave no details on what those actions might have been, according to Reuters news agency.
Mr Pigaglio’s passport and mobile phone were confiscated shortly after his arrest. Before his possessions were removed he contacted the French embassy and alerted fellow French journalists.
Reporters Without Borders position Egypt low on a list ranking countries on their freedom of press from best to worst. Egypt is 159 out of 180 countries in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
The head of the Egyptian journalists’ union, Yahia Galash, and two colleagues were arrested and detained on Monday (30 May).
“The arrest of key media figures at the Press Syndicate [union] signals a dangerous escalation of the Egyptian authorities’ draconian clampdown on freedom of expression,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, interim Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.
On 1 May, armed members of the Egyptian National Security agency are reported to have forcibly entered the union headquarters in Cairo, without permission, for the first time since it was established in 1941. They attacked journalists, security guards and arrested two journalists.
Thousands of Egyptian journalists gathered outside the union on 4 May, World Press Freedom Day, demanding the release of detained and imprisoned journalists and calling for greater protection for journalists
At least 20 journalists are currently imprisoned in Egypt for carrying out their work, according to the journalists’ union.
La Croix is a daily general-interest Catholic newspaper known for its lack of political bias. It covers world news, the economy, religion and spirituality, culture and science.
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