Egyptian police arrested two reporters from the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel "on suspicion of illegally broadcasting news harming 'domestic security,'" according to Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Officers raided the two reporters' hotel room in Cairo Sunday and confiscated their equipment. The two reporters, an Egyptian and an Australian, were then arrested immediately. A cameraman was also arrested in the raid.
Al-Jazeera English has identified the arrested reporters as Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Adel Fahmy and Peter Greste. The name of the cameraman was not provided.
Police officers were instructed to raid the reporters' room after the interior ministry announced that the journalists were "in possession of Muslim Brotherhood 'publications,'" and had broadcast "live news harming domestic security."
The Egyptian declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization last week, which has made membership or even possession of the group's literature a crime under the law.
This is not the first time the Egyptian government has targeted Al-Jazeera. During the oust of former president Mohammed Morsi in July, the military government accused an Al-Jazeera affiliated channel of "pro-Brotherhood coverage." Many of the channel's journalists were subsequently arrested.
Greste is a former BBC journalist and won the 2011 Peabody award for his documentary on Somalia. Fahmy, who previously worked with CNN, is a prestigious journalist in the country's capital.
