Ashraf Omar, the cartoonist who worked for the daily Al Manassa, remains imprisoned. He has been in pre-trial detention for more than a year on various charges.
On 21 July 2024, Egyptian cartoonist and translator Ashraf Omar was violently taken from his home in Cairo by men in civilian clothes who blindfolded him, beat him and searched his home. His whereabouts were unknown for several hours.
Shortly afterwards, it emerged that he had been arrested for"spreading false news","misuse of social media" and"membership of a terrorist organisation" and was even interrogated about the content of his cartoons, his political views and his "intentions".
Nada Mougheeth, his wife, was arrested earlier this year. On 16 January 2025, Nada was arrested and interrogated after speaking to a journalist about the arrest and torture of her husband. In that interview, Nada claimed that when security forces arrested Ashraf, they took more than 300,000 Egyptian pounds, but that only a fraction of that amount was listed in the official records of the interrogation. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior claimed that her claim about the theft was a lie and therefore considered that she should be charged with spreading false accusations.
She was also charged with "joining a terrorist organisation and spreading false news". She was released on bail of 5,000 Egyptian pounds after questioning. Ahmed Serag, the journalist who conducted the interview with Nada, was also arrested and remanded in the same prison as Omar.
When the cartoonist had been in prison for about seven months, Italian illustrator and activist Gianluca Constantini wrote a note entitled Between art and repression: the plight of Ashraf Omar in an Egyptian prison, in which he reported that the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) had renewed its call to prosecutor Mohamed Shawky to release the cartoonist immediately.
For the Journalists' Syndicate, the cases of Omar and Serag are not isolated incidents: at least 25 journalists are currently detained in Egypt for carrying out their professional duties or exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression. More than half are being detained illegally, as the maximum legal limit for pre-trial detention has been exceeded.
On 28 January 2025, during the Universal Periodic Review session, Egypt received 21 recommendations from 21 countries on freedom of expression and media freedom, urging the government to stop persecuting journalists for doing their work and to guarantee their independence and safety.
On 21 July this year, one year after the arrest and imprisonment of Ashraf Omar, 23 collectives and organisations of cartoonists, journalists and human rights defenders issued a joint statement condemning the illegal detention and "preventive arrest" of the cartoonist, as well as the judicial harassment of the cartoonist and those close to him, and calling for his immediate release.
Published by Khartoon! Illustration by KhalidAlbaih
Humour in trouble, a collection of cases
Cases of cartoonists who have had problems of some importance because of their cartoons or satirical illustrations. There are also some stories of other people who, without being cartoonists, have got into trouble for sharing them.
