CAIRO — Just hours after British-Lebanese TV presenter Liliane Daoud announced June 27 that her contract had ended with private satellite channel ONTV, the Egyptian authorities decided to deport her from the country under the pretext that her residency permit had expired. 

“At 5:45 p.m. June 27, about an hour after I announced that my contract with ONTV had ended, eight security personnel arrived [at my home]. Without showing me any official papers, they demanded my British passport. They treated me rudely in front of my [11-year-old] daughter and her father — my ex-husband, the Egyptian journalist Khalid Alberry — who had come to see our daughter,” Daoud wrote in Arabic on Twitter.

In a series of tweets describing the incident that she posted after arriving in Beirut, Daoud added, “I asked to call my embassy and my lawyer, but they refused and had taken my cellphone from me. They also refused to show me the [deportation] order. One of the men began screaming and threatening me, saying that he would take me by force, with or without my consent. I, meanwhile, stressed that I objected to them violating the sanctity of my home and family.”

Daoud eventually went with them to Cairo International Airport, although she said she didn’t know where they were taking her at the time. According to her, she relented and quit protesting after the security personnel gave her a verbal promise that they would not harm her daughter or ex-husband. She said that after arriving at the airport, she asked to call her embassy and her family, but all of her requests were denied. “[They told me] we have orders, we’re only implementing them. We only know that your residency permit has ended and we must deport you,” she wrote.