The pan-Arab Al Jazeera television network on 23 July accused Egyptian authorities of a sustained campaign of intimidation against its staff, rejecting charges of bias in its reporting on the crisis in Egypt. Hours after the Egyptian military ousted President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July, security forces raided the Cairo offices of Al Jazeera’s Egyptian news channel, which military sources accused at the time of broadcasting “incitement.”
Based in Qatar, Al Jazeera had been criticised for its perceived bias in covering their country. Al Jazeera said authorities had been “tightening its grip on the freedom of Al Jazeera’s staff” for the past three weeks. Al Jazeera said in a statement the Egyptian authorities had filed a law suit saying it had stolen two transmission feeds from state television and used them to broadcast protests at a square where Morsi supporters have been camped since his ouster. “There is no truth to what is being published in this campaign about Al Jazeera’s bias toward one side in the current political equation. These are accusations with no proof,” the statement said.