Security forces raided the Cairo offices of Al Jazeera English on Sunday, confiscating broadcasting equipment and arresting the office’s financial manager, Mostafa Hawa, a source from the Qatar-based satellite news channel told Mada Masr.

The authorities reportedly entered the offices at 5 pm in the evening, interrogated the financial manager in the office and left. They then returned to the bureau to confiscate the equipment and arrested Hawa, taking him to the police station. The source said the raid lasted for about six hours.

Prosecution has subsequently ordered Hawa’s release on LE10,000 bail on charges of illegal operation, but as of early Monday evening he was still in custody.

The source, who declined to be identified due to security reasons, said that the channel is licensed and officially registered.

“There was no need for such a raid. It is just because we have the Al Jazeera brand name,” the source alleged.

On Sunday, authorities deported three foreign Al Jazeera reporters for allegedly using unlicensed satellite transmitters and working in Egypt without the proper permits, the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

An official at Cairo International Airport told Al-Ahram that the reporters boarded a flight to London under heavy security and did not bring any of their equipment with them.

Al Jazeera English correspondent Wayne Hay, cameraman Adil Bradlow and producer Russ Finn were detained on Tuesday with their Egyptian colleague Baher Mohamed while covering events in Egypt, the Associated Press reported.

Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr was officially banned from broadcasting last week when the minister of investment asserted that the channel was not officially registered with Egyptian authorities and was broadcasting unlawfully.

The crackdown on the channel has been seen by some as an expression of the Armed Force’s discomfort with the channel’s coverage since former President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster on July 3. The state has accused the channel of bias towards the Muslim Brotherhood.