The publisher of the New York Times has claimed that the Trump administration planned to let a reporter get arrested in Egypt.
A.G. Sulzberger made the claim Monday during a talk at Brown University, and his remarks were later published in his newspaper’s opinion section.
“Two years ago, we got a call from a United States government official warning us of the imminent arrest of a New York Times reporter based in Egypt named Declan Walsh,” he said. “Though the news was alarming, the call was actually fairly standard. Over the years, we’ve received countless such warnings from American diplomats, military leaders, and national security officials.”
“Unable to count on our own government to prevent the arrest or help free Declan if he were imprisoned, we turned to his native country, Ireland, for help,” Sulzberger continued, adding that Irish officials got him to the airport before he could be arrested.
The 39-year-old publisher also cited a February 2019 incident in which the newspaper’s David Kirkpatrick was detained in Egypt and deported in “apparent retaliation” for reporting information embarrassing to the Egyptian government.
“A senior official at the United States Embassy in Cairo openly voiced the cynical worldview behind the Trump administration’s tolerance for such crackdowns. ‘What did you expect would happen to him?'” he said. “‘His reporting made the government look bad,'” Sulzberger stated.
The rest of Sulzberger’s talk focused on the threats journalists face around the world and how Trump had played a role in the shift.
Walsh, who remains in Egypt as the newspaper’s Cairo bureau chief, was expelled from Pakistan in 2013 for “undesirable activities.” Kirkpatrick is a London-based foreign correspondent for the newspaper.
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