CAIRO — Thousands of Egyptian journalists called on Wednesday for the presidency to dismiss the interior minister and apologize for a police raid on the press syndicate and arrest of two opposition reporters.

Defying a heavy police presence outside their union, around 3,000 journalists attended an emergency meeting to protest against the arrest on Sunday of Mahmoud El Sakka and Amr Badr who work for the opposition website Bawabet Yanayer.

The arrests came as authorities try to quell rising dissent against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Hundreds of officers were deployed in central Cairo after protests last month against his decision to hand two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

Union officials said the police action at the syndicate was the first raid on the organization in its 75-year history.

“We demand the presidency deliver a clear apology to journalists over the crime of raiding the syndicate,” said syndicate official Karem Mahmoud, reading out the meeting’s decisions.

“We demand the sacking of the interior minister as he is the main (person) responsible for the crisis,” he said.

Chanting “journalism is not a crime,” the reporters voted to call on newspapers to print blank front pages and stop using Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar’s name.

They also decided to hold a meeting next week to discuss organizing a strike if their demands were not met, union officials said.

On Monday, the public prosecutor said Sakka and Badr were being investigated for “spreading news based on lies” and possession of firearms among other accusations.