Head of Journalists Syndicate Yehia Qalash issued a statement to refute the accusations directed to him by general prosecution of hiding wanted persons inside the headquarter of the syndicate, al-Bawaba News reported Monday. The Egyptian law states that persons who hide wanted criminal should be punished, the allegations Qalash totally denied, saying that the two wanted journalists were not hiding; they were staging a sit-in inside the syndicate in public in front of everyone, since the syndicate is not a property of Qalash. "The syndicate's head is not obliged to arrest people or hand them to police, and the syndicate is a public place and home of any journalist," the statement reads. Qalash added that the prosecution never sent him a warrant to hand the two journalists, thus he didn't report the police against them. Qalash is undergoing an investigation over accusations of hiding two wanted journalists inside the syndicate, alongside secretary-general Gamal Abdel Rehim, and undersecretary Khaled el-Balshy. The prosecution ordered to release them on bail estimated at EGP 10 thousand, but they refused to pay.
