Three unidentified men in plain clothes abducted Hany Sobhy, a novelist and short story writer, from his Cairo home, according to his wife, Mary Naim, who told Al Manassa they made no effort to identify themselves or present a warrant.
“They said it would take five minutes,” Mary told Al Manassa. “They knocked at 2 am, asked for him politely, and left with him in a car. His phone was immediately switched off. We’ve heard nothing since.”
Sobhy managed to post a brief message on Facebook just before his disappearance, declaring, “I’m being arrested at Marg police station.” The post was later deleted, and his phone has remained off. His family has received no official acknowledgment of his detention or location. “He hasn’t done anything,” Mary said.
Naim believes her husband was being watched. The men arrived only an hour after he returned home. One demanded Sobhy’s phone at the door. Mary initially resisted, but her husband handed it over. Another told her to stay quiet, so the children wouldn’t wake up, she explained to Al Manassa.
She spent Wednesday in a desperate search for answers. “I waited three hours at Marg Police Station as detainees were transferred. He wasn’t among them. I went to the Heliopolis Prosecution office. Nothing.”
Naim has issued a public appeal to the authorities and rights groups: “We just want to know where he is, and that he’s alive.”
Sobhy’s most recent work, “Ruh Al-Ruh” (The Soul of the Soul), published last year, includes a short story reflecting on the Israeli genocide in Gaza. He wrote: “Who doesn’t love Palestine? Is there anything in Palestine not to adore?”
His earlier novel, “At a Café in Shubra”, published in 2020, is set in the heart of Cairo’s Shubra district and explores themes of memory, loss, and belonging.
