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A 26-year-old L.A. man working as a translator for an Egyptian filmmaker was arrested Wednesday in Cairo.Egyptian authorities are still holding Jeremy Hodge, a UCSB alum whose LinkedIn says he is a translator for Transparency International, a non-governmental organization that monitors corruption in developing countries. Also arrested was the documentary filmmaker he was working for, Hossam Eddin el-Meneai, who is Egyptian.
Egyptian police have recently been detaining journalists in the country to discourage investigations of the new government, some observers believe.
“They’re asking me how I know him, and where I learned my Arabic.” Hodge wrote in texts to friends just before he was arrested, according to the Associated Press. “Hossam is being investigated, I’m waiting around.”
The U.S. Embassy in Cairo is working on freeing Hodge, officials said.