Egyptian authorities must immediately release journalist Mohamed Monir and drop all charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Earlier today, plainclothes security officers in Giza arrested Monir, a veteran journalist and freelance columnist who had recently written for the Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera, according to Al-Jazeera and other news reports.

Egypt's national security prosecutor then charged Monir with joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and misusing social media, and ordered his pretrial detention for 15 days, a period that can be renewed or extended at the prosecutor's request, according to a Facebook post by Nabeh el-Ganadi, the journalist's lawyer, which stated that authorities did not link the charges to any specific examples of Monir's commentary or reporting.

"Egyptian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Mohamed Monir and drop these baseless charges," said CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, Sherif Mansour.

On June 13, plainclothes security officers raided Monir's apartment in his absence, and searched his house, according to surveillance video that Monir posted the following day on his Facebook page, and news reports.