CAIRO, Jul 8 (Aswat Masriya) - An Egyptian misdemeanour court sentenced a television show host to 10 years in prison in absentia on Wednesday for "inciting the overthrow of the regime" and "spreading false news", a judicial source said.

Moataz Matar, a presenter at the Istanbul-based el-Sharq satellite channel, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds for "inciting the overthrow of the regime" and five years and a 200 pound fine for "spreading false news," the source said.

Egypt accuses Sharq of being a "terrorist" channel affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood group. 

Press freedom in Egypt has lately come under scrutiny. 

The state faced grave criticism after a Cairo court sent three journalists from the Qatari al-Jazeera network between seven to ten years in prison in June 2014 for defaming Egypt and spreading false news. 

Two of journalists are currently being retried from outside court, while the third, an Australian national, was deported in early February.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report on press freedom in Egypt published in June that the state's imprisonment of journalists is at "an all-time high". It counted at least 18 journalists behind bars in relation to their reporting.