The Cairo Criminal Court on Saturday postponed to 15 May the trial of 20 reporters from Qatari al-Jazeera English channel, including four foreigners over charges of instigative reporting.
Eight defendants are already detained while the other 12 are fugitives.
The prosecution ordered by end of December to arrest 20 suspects, including four foreign correspondents: an Australian, two British nationals and a Dutch national. Eight defendants were arrested and the rest are tried in absentia.
They were all accused of fabricating photos and lies and broadcasting them through Al Jazeera Channel. According to the prosecution papers, the defendants were part of a media network “that has specialized in creating video scenes contrary to reality and airing them through Qatari AJE and US CNN to distort Egypt’s international reputation.”
The charges are based on the government's declaration last month of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Authorities have long considered the Doha-based Al Jazeera network, which was highly acclaimed during 25 January revolution, as biased towards Islamists including deposed President Mohamed Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al Jazeera's Cairo offices have been closed down since 3 July, after being raided by security forces in the immediate aftermath of the ouster of Morsy.
The Al Jazeera network has described the allegations against Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed, who were detained in their Cairo hotel on 29 December, as “absurd, baseless and false.”
In the new politically-polarized, post-Morsy Egypt, political figures and meda reports have shown little sympathy for the journalists, often describing them as “terrorists” from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
