This report is from Democracy Digest, the National Endowment for Democracy’s daily blog:

Egyptian security forces targeted one of the last remaining independent news outlets in the country on Saturday, taking a journalist from his home and detaining him in an unknown location, according to the news site, the Washington Post reports (HT:FDD).

The arrest of a prominent journalist also raised alarms among researchers in Washington who rely on Mada Masr, the New York Times adds:

The tightening of government pressure on Mada Masr escalated Saturday with the arrest of a senior editor, Shady Zalat, 37, in a dawn raid on his home. After being held at an undisclosed location overnight, Mr. Zalat was released on Sunday evening by the side of a highway, Mada Masr said in a statement.

“Mada is one of the Middle East’s real treasures,” said Amy Hawthorne, a deputy director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy, a partner of the National Endowment for Democracy. “It is probably the single most important publication for every Egypt-watcher or Egypt expert I know.”

Read the full report here.