Al-Jazeera logo. Photo: Al-Jazeera

A television crew from Qatari-based media group Al-Jazeera was banned from an Egyptian government press conference because of their pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance, the second time since the June 30 coup ousted President Muhammed Morsi’s Islamist regime, Egypt’s Al-Ahram weekly reported online.

Al-Ahram said Al-Jazeera was booted on Monday from the the Ministry’s Cairo headquarters during the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Electricity and the Arab Organization for Industrialization for the funding of a 1 million Egyptian Pound ($140,000 USD) solar panel installation.

Ministry of Electricity officials told Al-Ahram that the Al-Jazeera television crew was expelled because of the positions held of the channel’s ownership and its bias.

Al-Jazeera had previously been expelled from a joint press conference held by the Egyptian army and police, because of objections to the media group’s coverage of the recent events in Cairo.

Two weeks ago, nearly two-dozen Al-Jazeera employees resigned from Cairo’s “Mubasher Misr” (or “Egypt Live”) channel, which reports on political, social and cultural issues, because of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias in its coverage, they said.

According to the Dubai-based English-language daily Gulf News, employees were instructed by management to favor the Muslim Brotherhood in their coverage. Karem Mahmoud, an anchor at Al-Jazeera, told Gulf News that the lack of professionalism in the network’s coverage of the turmoil in Egypt was the reason he resigned.