Widespread condemnation of Germany's detention of Al Jazeera journalist

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The arrest of Ahmad Mansour [pictured above] comes two weeks after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi visited Germany.

There has been growing international condemnation of the German authority's decision to detain the Al Jazeera programme presenter Ahmad Mansour.

Immediately after news of his detention broke yesterday afternoon, protesters descended on Berlin's Tegel airport to protest.

Acting Director General of Al Jazeera network Mostefa Souag said, "The crackdown on journalists by Egyptian authorities is well known. Our network, as the Arab world's most-watched, has taken the brunt of this. Other countries must not allow themselves to be tools of this media oppression, least of all those that respect freedom of the media as does Germany,"

The arrest of Mansour comes two weeks after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi visited Germany. In a telephone conversation with his employers Mansour said his lawyers believed his detention was the result of a secret agreement between Germany and Egypt. In October last year Interpol had rejected Egypt's request for an international arrest warrant against him.

Elsewhere, the decision to detain Mansour was strongly condemned by the Egyptian Revolutionary Council. In London, the council's head Dr Maha Azzam said "The ERC reminds the German authorities that all human rights organisations have unequivocally recorded that the Sisi regime is brutally curbing freedom of press within Egypt through arbitrary arrest, torture and handing out of death sentences based on trumped-up charges in kangaroo courts".