Reuters: Egypt confirms Al Jazeera producer's arrest for 'provoking sedition'

Egypt confirmed on Sunday that it had arrested an Al Jazeera news producer, accusing him of "provoking sedition" on behalf of the Qatar-based broadcaster that it considers a mouthpiece of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Judicial sources said Mahmoud Hussain, who was detained on Friday, was being held on charges of disturbing public security and spreading false news.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that Al Jazeera officials "had ordered some individuals collaborating with the channel inside the country to continue implementing its media plan of provoking sedition, incitement against the state, and spreading chaos through broadcasting false news".

It identified Hussain as a person implementing that plan for the channel which is not allowed to operate inside Egypt.

"(Hussain) is a news producer in the Al Jazeera Arabic newsroom and not a correspondent supervisor as alleged by the statement ... (he) would not have traveled through the airport at Egypt if he was undertaking any illegal activities as alleged by the MOI statement," the statement said.

Egypt has arrested several Al Jazeera reporters over the past two years In May, a Cairo court recommended the death penalty against two of them, charged in absentia with endangering national security by leaking state secrets to Qatar