The first hearing in the trial of four foreign journalists working for the Doha-based Al Jazeera news network and 16 Egyptians was held on Thursday in Cairo.

The first hearing in the trial of four foreign journalists working for the Doha-based Al Jazeera news network and 16 Egyptians was held on Thursday in Cairo against a stepped-up international solidarity campaign pressing for their release.

The court adjourned to March 5 the trial of 20 Al-Jazeera journalists – including an Australian, a Dutch and two UK nationals – who face charges of disrupting Egypt's national security by producing fabricated news stories and footage to distort Egypt's international image.

Mohammad Fadel Fahmi, Egyptian-Canadian journalist and Al Jazeera's Cairo bureau chief, is also accused – along with the other 15 Egyptians – of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the group to which ousted president Mohammad Mursi belongs.

Late last December, security forces raided a room in Cairo's Marriott hotel and arrested Fahmi and Peter Greste after questioning them and confiscating their equipment.

Immediately after the raid, Egypt's pro-army media hailed the journalists' arrest, dubbing it the "Marriott terrorist cell" case.

Egypt's military-backed administration had repeatedly accused Al Jazeera of bias in favor of Mursi.

On the eve of the trial, seven top editors from international media giants BBC, Sky News, ITN, Reuters, NBC and ABC News signed an open letter demanding the release of Greste and the other detained journalists amid an ongoing solidarity campaign by journalists from around the world.