Journalist from Al-Jazeera TV channel detained

CAIRO – Egyptian authorities detained Saturday a journalist from the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera TV network for fabricating scenes of torture staged inside Egyptian police stations, an interior ministry statement said.

Egyptian TV producer Howaida Taha Matwali was banned earlier this week from travelling to Qatar, the headquarters of the Al-Jazeera network, after airport police seized 50 video tapes she was carrying in her luggage, the statement said. Prosecutors ordered her detention on Saturday for further questioning, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.A special arts committee affiliated to the interior ministry viewed the video tapes and said they showed “unedited scenes of fabricated torture incidents, and assaults by individuals wearing police uniforms on others playing roles of male and female suspects inside studios decorated to look like police stations,” the statement said.The tapes have not been made public and the actors are not registered in actors’ syndicate, it added.The bureau chief in Egypt for Al-Jazeera, Hussein Abdel-Ghani, said that the footage was “reconstruction” which Matwali intended to use in a documentary film about torture in Egypt.Reconstructing scenes with actors “is a well known method in the production of documentaries, and Al-Jazeera is not the only network to talk about torture,” Abdel-Ghani said.He said the detained journalist had also twice obtained permissions from the Egyptian interior ministry to interview police officers about torture.Al-Jazeera said on its Arabic Web site that Egyptian prosecutors accused Matwali of: “filming footage that harms the national interest of the country; possessing and giving pictures contradicting the truth, and giving a wrong description of the situation in the country.”Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely conducted in Egyptian police stations and in the interrogation of prisoners.The government denies systematic torture, but has investigated several officers.Nampa-APProsecutors ordered her detention on Saturday for further questioning, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.A special arts committee affiliated to the interior ministry viewed the video tapes and said they showed “unedited scenes of fabricated torture incidents, and assaults by individuals wearing police uniforms on others playing roles of male and female suspects inside studios decorated to look like police stations,” the statement said.The tapes have not been made public and the actors are not registered in actors’ syndicate, it added.The bureau chief in Egypt for Al-Jazeera, Hussein Abdel-Ghani, said that the footage was “reconstruction” which Matwali intended to use in a documentary film about torture in Egypt.Reconstructing scenes with actors “is a well known method in the production of documentaries, and Al-Jazeera is not the only network to talk about torture,” Abdel-Ghani said.He said the detained journalist had also twice obtained permissions from the Egyptian interior ministry to interview police officers about torture.Al-Jazeera said on its Arabic Web site that Egyptian prosecutors accused Matwali of: “filming footage that harms the national interest of the country; possessing and giving pictures contradicting the truth, and giving a wrong description of the situation in the country.”Rights groups say torture, including sexual abuse, is routinely conducted in Egyptian police stations and in the interrogation of prisoners.The government denies systematic torture, but has investigated several officers.Nampa-AP