CAIRO — Egyptian authorities detained a team of journalists working for the Al Jazeera English news channel on Sunday, including an Australian journalist and the channel’s Cairo bureau chief, on charges that included meeting with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that the Egyptian government classified last week as a terrorist organization.

The arrests appeared aimed at deterring journalists from speaking with members of the Brotherhood or reporting on the group’s continuing protests. The Interior Ministry accused the journalists of broadcasting “false news” that “damaged national security” from two hotel suites. The authorities also said that the journalists possessed materials that promoted “incitement,” including information about campus strikes by students who supported the Brotherhood.

The Interior Ministry also asserted that one of the people arrested was a Brotherhood member, but it did not name that person or the other detained journalists. A colleague said that one of them was Peter Greste, an Australian correspondent for Al Jazeera who won a Peabody Award last year while working for the BBC in Somalia.

A spokesman for Al Jazeera confirmed the journalists had been detained but said he had no information about the charges.