The journalist for the investigative media Disclose, Ariane Lavrilleux, has been taken into police custody, the site announces in a press release published this Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter). The journalist’s home was searched at 6 a.m., the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) having opened an investigation for “compromising national defense secrets and revealing information that could lead to the identification of a protected agent” in July 2022.
A source close to the case confirmed to AFP that an investigating judge was currently carrying out these operations, “given her status as a journalist”. The case began in November 2021, when the investigative media published an investigation into the Sirli military operation, in Egypt. Journalists reveal, effectively from secret defense documents, that French intelligence is being hijacked by the Egyptian army.
Complaint for complicity in crimes against humanity
Operation Sirli, whose objective was to identify jihadist targets, is according to Disclose used by Egypt to eliminate civilian targets who are smuggling while returning by pick-up from Libya. According to the media, nearly twenty strikes against civilians took place thanks to French intelligence between 2016 and 2018.
In September 2022, two NGOs based in the United States, Egyptians Abroad for Democracy and Code Pink, filed a complaint against France for complicity in crimes against humanity. Disclose denounces this “serious threat to press freedom”, convinced that its objective is to “identify the sources which allowed Disclose to reveal the Sirli military operation in Egypt”.
The secrecy of sources “totally flouted”
“I am appalled and worried about the escalation in attacks on freedom of information, and the coercive measures taken against the Disclose journalist,” reacted Ms. Virginie Marquet, lawyer for Ariane Lavrilleux and the investigative media.
“This search risks seriously undermining the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, which I can legitimately fear has been completely violated since this morning. Disclose will protect its journalist who only revealed information of public interest,” she added. Despite the concerns and warnings of certain officials about the excesses of the operation, the French authorities would not have called the mission into question, according to Disclose, citing secret documents.