About an hour ago, six reporters with Al Jazeera were arrested in Cairo. This follows a crackdown on the news network’s operations by the Egyptian government. Al Jazeera correspondent Dan Nolan live-tweeted the group’s arrest, above.
Update: Reports are now circulating that they’ve been released, following a request from the US State Department Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Their equipment, however, was seized and so far not returned: “We’re okay, they held us for 3 hours, we’ve been released, took cameras, laptops and phones,” tweeted Nolan.
As Jeremy Scahill just noted, times are changing: “Under Bush, the US bombed Al Jazeera’s offices. Today the Obama administration calls on Egypt to free its detained journalists.”
(Maybe soon, Americans will even be able to get AJE from US cable providers.)