France accused of attack on press freedom after journalist arrest

France has been accused of an “unacceptable” onslaught connected property state aft the apprehension of an investigative writer who reported connected leaked documents that alleged French quality was utilized to people civilians successful Egypt.

Police arrived astatine the location of Ariane Lavrilleux astatine dawn connected Tuesday and took her into custody aft searching her property. AFP reported that she was being questioned by agents of the DGSI, France’s home quality agency.

Lavrilleux wrote a bid of articles published connected the investigative website Disclose successful November 2021 and based connected hundreds of leaked classified documents. These allegedly showed however accusation from a French counter-intelligence cognition successful Egypt was utilized by Cairo for “a run of arbitrary killings” against smugglers operating on the Libyan border.

Disclose described the apprehension arsenic “an unacceptable onslaught connected the secrecy of (press) sources”. The Société des Journalistes astatine France Télévisions and Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) besides attacked the targeting of the journalist.

“We fearfulness that the DGSI’s actions volition undermine the secrecy of the sources,” RSF said.

Virginie Marquet, the lawyer for Lavrilleux and Disclose, said they had lone published accusation of “public interest” and condemned the arrest.

“I americium appalled and disquieted astir the escalation successful attacks connected the state to pass and the coercive measures taken against the Disclose journalist. This hunt risks earnestly undermining the confidentiality of journalists’ sources.”

The Disclose articles said the leaked documents showed the accusation from French quality was utilized successful astatine slightest 19 bombings against smugglers successful the portion betwixt 2016 and 2018. The documents besides showed officials wrong the French authorities had warned that the Egyptian authorities could usage the accusation from the counter-intelligence cognition codenamed Sirli, but the cognition was allowed to continue.

“The purpose of this latest occurrence of unacceptable intimidation of Disclose journalists is clear: to place our sources that revealed the Sirli subject cognition successful Egypt. In November 2021, Disclose revealed an alleged run of arbitrary executions orchestrated by the Egyptian dictatorship of President al-Sisi, with the complicity of the French state, based connected respective 100 “documents marked “defence – confidential,” Disclose wrote successful a statement.

France’s ministry for the equipped forces had filed a ineligible ailment for “violation of nationalist defence secrets” aft the nonfiction was published. The Paris prosecutors’ bureau opened a ceremonial probe successful July 2022 that was handed implicit to the DGSI, which argues the published accusation could person identified “a protected agent”.