An Egyptian appeals court has suspended a jail sentence against the former head of the journalists’ union for harbouring colleagues wanted by authorities and for spreading false news.
Yehia Qalash and two colleagues were sentenced to two years in jail in November in a case which Amnesty International condemned as a further crackdown on freedom of expression in Egypt.
The appeals court gave Qalash and the two board members, Khaled al-Balshy and Gamal Abdel Rahim, a one-year suspended jail sentence.
The charges against them related to a police raid last May on the Journalists’ Syndicate to arrest two opposition journalists who had sought shelter there from arrest.
