Critics damn move against Bassem Youssef, Egypt's Jon Stewart, whose show, al-Bernameg, gets more than 30 million viewers

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Middle East's most popular TV satirist was issued with an arrest warrant and questioned by Egypt's top prosecutor for allegedly insulting Islam and the Egyptian president.

Bassem Youssef, who is known as Egypt's Jon Stewart, turned himself in after the prosecutor general issued an arrest warrant for him on Saturday. He was released on bail of 15,000 Egyptian pounds (£1,500) after being questioned for three hours.

It is the latest in a series of arrests of opposition activists, lawyers and politicians this week – and according to Egypt's foremost human rights campaigner, it heralds the most serious affront to free speech since associates of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood assumed power last year. "This is the crackdown," said Heba Morayef, director of Human Rights Watch in Egypt.

Youssef rose to prominence after the country's 2011 uprising. His show has more than 30 million viewers across the Middle East and he has been sued several times by private individuals. But this is the first time that the prosecutor general, Talaat Abdallah, has followed up one of the complaints with legal action – a symbolic gesture that suggests President Mohamed Morsi's Islamist-led regime is now prepared to take a more authoritarian stance against its critics.

Youssef's show, al-Bernameg, critiques both fundamentalist clerics and Morsi – whose face Youssef once projected on to a pillow – and is seen as a triumph for free speech in the post-Mubarak era.

But that rosy view has been rocked by the prosecutor's intervention, the significance of which Youssef explained in an interview with the Guardian earlier this month, when he said: "You can't prevent people from suing us. The tipping point would be if these lawsuits are activated by the attorney general."

This weekend that moment arrived and it has been received furiously by the government's opponents.

"Pathetic efforts to smother dissent and intimidate media is a sign of a shaky regime and a bunker mentality," tweeted Mohamed ElBaradei, the leader of Egypt's main opposition coalition.

Youssef himself characteristically focused on the lighter side of his plight, arriving at court in a comically outsized version of a graduation hat worn by Morsi at a ceremony in Pakistan this month.

While inside, he said in tweets he later deleted: "Police officers and lawyers at the prosecutor-general's office want to be photographed with me, maybe this is why they ordered my arrest?"

Crowds massed outside the court chanted: "Bassem, Bassem" after he was released.

"I think it's targeted, it's planned, and obviously it comes after a couple of speeches by Morsi where he made very clear threats," said Morayef

Last Sunday, Morsi gave a speech and published a series of tweets in which he promised to take necessary measures against opposition figures who incited what he called violence and rioting.

Youssef's arrest is doubly concerning for Egypt's disparate opposition because it comes just a day after nine opposition activists and four lawyers were arrested in Alexandria – and less than a week after Abdallah launched legal proceedings against five prominent activists (including the siblings Alaa Abdel-Fattah and Mona Seif) for inciting violence against the Muslim Brotherhood.

It has also raised the possibility of a wider censorship of the media. For several months, the prosecutor-general has summoned journalists for questioning on charges of criminal defamation. But no related legal proceedings have yet been set in motion, which is why this week's developments have so alarmed the opposition.

"This has been the first step, the Alaa and Mona case, and the Bassem Youssef case," said Morayef. "And that's why this is so serious."

Abdallah's actions also renewed concerns about Egypt's "Brotherhoodisation", a term used by critics of the regime to imply that the Muslim Brotherhood has used its influence to appoint its allies to administrative positions whose roles are intended to be politically neutral.

Abdallah himself has long been considered such a politicised appointment, after Morsi circumvented constitutional protocol to promote him in November.

Abdallah's decision to arrest the activists and Youssef adds to this impression, particularly as it immediately followed Morsi's speech last Sunday.

To add to the mess, a judge this week ruled that Abdallah's appointment was illegal – but Abdallah refused to stand down.