EGYPT AUTHORITIES RELEASE ANADOLU JOURNALIST AFTER EIGHT-HOUR DETENTION

Cairo, 12 Shawwal 1434/18 August 2013 (MINA) – Egyptian authorities have released an Anadolu Agency correspondent who was detained Friday while covering a standoff between Egyptian security forces and anti-coup protesters holed up inside a mosque near Cairo’s Ramses Square.

Heba Zakariya, who was reporting the standoff from inside Fath Mosque, was freed after eight hours of detention. She was among journalists covering the day-long siege of the Ramses mosque when she was arrested.

Metin Turan from the Turkish state-broadcaster TRT was also among those detained. The two had later been taken to Tora jail in southern Cairo, Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

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Speaking to AA via phone, Zakariya said she was released at 4:20 am along with 26 other women who were arrested following the standoff. A prisoner transport vehicle took them to Azhar to stay there until an overnight curfew is lifted.

Six other women were not released with them; three with Irish nationality who would be probably handed to the Irish embassy, and the others were escorted by relatives who were also reported to be police officers.

Hundreds of protesters, including women and children, had taken refuge in the mosque following assault by security forces in Ramses Square escalated.

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Later, security forces tightened control over the entire square and besieged Fath Mosque and the nearby Tawheed Mosque.

The protesters fear that they would be attacked by thugs and angry residents if they went out, and decided to stay inside the mosque.

More than 181 people were killed Friday in mass rallies staged by pro-democracy demonstrators in several Egyptian cities to protest Wednesday’s violent dispersal of their two main protest sites in Cairo and Giza.

Egypt has been in a state of turmoil since security forces violently dispersed the sit-ins in Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda squares on Wednesday.

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The Health Ministry has said that at least 638 people had been killed in nationwide violence since Wednesday, including 288 in Rabaa and 87 in Nahda.

However, the pro-Morsi alliance has put the number of deaths from the Rabaa sit-in alone at some 2,600. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).