The Lebanese broadcast journalist and TV host Liliane Daoud was arrested at her Cairo house late on Monday and transported to an airport for deportation, her Lawyer Ziad El-Elaimy said on his Facebook account, according to Al-Shorouk.
The incident reportedly occurred at 6pm on Monday, a few hours after Liliane Daoud announced that her contract would end with ONTV Channel.
“Eight officers, who claimed to be from the Egyptian Passport Control Authority, stormed her house and forced her to leave with them, in order to deport her from Egypt,” lawyer Zyad Elelaimy posted to Facebook.
He added, “They prevented her from making any calls and confiscated her mobile phone,” Elelaimy added.
Daoud has a young daughter with her ex-husband Khaled Al-Berry, who is an Egyptian Journalist. Daoud’s ex-husband claimed in a Facebook post that she has permanent residency because she was married to an Egyptian citizen for six years, but they said that the orders came from al-Sisi’s office.”
He added that she was not allowed to pack anything and was only allowed to take her wallet.
Journalists and activists expressed their shock at her arrest on social media.
“This is a campaign against respectable media and free journalism … all we were doing was presenting a respectable show … so we don’t know what we are being punished for,” said Amer Tamam, the programme’s editor-in-chief.
The former satirical TV host Bassem Youssef said Daoud’s arrest was “just the beginning.”
Daoud hosted a TV show On ONTV called Al-Soura Al-Kamla (The full picture) as part of her contract with the channel since 2011.
ONTV Channel was sold by billionaire Egyptian investor Naguib Sawiris in May. It was recently acquired by steel tycoon and pro-state businessmen Ahmed Abu Hashima.
Since al-Sisi’s military coup that overthrew President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, the Egyptian authorities launched a massive crackdown on political opposition, arresting thousands of people, mainly his Islamist supporters as well as a number of popular secular activists.
Moreover, Mozn Hassan, a prominent female activist, was banned on Monday from travelling to a human rights meeting in Beirut. Nazra for Feminist Studies, a group she founded, said the case was linked to an intensified crackdown on non-governmental organizations.
