Twenty-three press and human rights organizations have called for the immediate release of Al Manassa cartoonist Ashraf Omar, marking the one-year anniversary of his pretrial detention.
Omar was arrested on July 22, 2024, after plainclothes security forces raided his home, blindfolded him, and took him to an undisclosed location. He reappeared two days later at the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which charged him with “spreading false news, misusing social media, and joining an illegal group”.
He has remained in pretrial detention ever since.
In a joint statement released yesterday, the organizations said that the anniversary of his arrest “marks a sad day for freedom of expression,” describing it as the start of “a year of his life wasted.” It demanded an end to Omar's detention and a swift conclusion to what it described as a baseless prosecution.
Detailing the abuse Omar endured following his arrest, the statement outlined he was beaten, verbally abused, and interrogated for six hours. During this interrogation, he was questioned over cartoons he had published on Al Manassa, reportedly asked whether the drawings aimed to provoke public dissent.
The statement also highlighted how the persecution broadened to include his family. Omar’s wife, Nada Mougheeth, was detained on January 16, 2025, accused of “spreading false rumors” about her husband’s arrest and “supporting terrorism,” before being released on bail.
The statement described her arrest as a clear attempt to silence her and noted that Omar remains detained with no sign of a trial date.
The signatories also underscored the broader context of media repression in Egypt, a landscape where 17 journalists are currently imprisoned, often charged with belonging to terrorist organizations or spreading false news.
They added that independent media remain under heavy censorship, while prolonged and indefinite pretrial detention is routinely employed to silence critics, political activists, and human rights defenders.
“Ashraf Omar personifies the struggle,” the statement concluded. “He is an honest man and was engaged in an ordinary and reasonable activity before a brutal regime chose to recast him as a ‘terrorist.’”
It also cited other global examples of cartoonists and dissidents targeted for their work, including cases in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Malaysia, and Turkey. “Freedom of expression is suffering an assault on a mass scale, all over the world,” the organizations said.
The statement ended with a pledge, asserting that “cartoonists—beacons of free expression around the world—are showing their support for Ashraf Omar. We will not forget him.”
Signatories to the statement include local and international organizations, such as Al Manassa, Cartooning for Peace, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
