Cartoonist Ashraf Omar’s trial is due to begin on May 10 following an extended pretrial detention period of nearly two years, as he faces terrorism charges over his publications, according to his defense lawyer Khaled Ali.
Omar and 11 defendants, including a woman, are accused of financing the terrorist-designated Muslim Brotherhood group, and is separately charged with assisting a terrorist group in achieving its aims, Ali explained Tuesday, in a Facebook post.
The 41 year-old cartoonist was arrested on July 22,2024, after security forces raided his house, and took him, blindfolded and handcuffed, to an undisclosed location, where he was detained incommunicado for two days.
According to a joint civil organizations' statement published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in March, he was subjected to different forms of mistreatment, such as beatings and threats of electric shock during those days. Three days later, state security prosecution authorities interrogated him for six hours before ordering his detention.
Omar had started publishing his drawings in Al Manassa shortly before his detention, mocking the sale of state assets, mainly to Gulf investors, as well as Egypt's debt crisis, electricity cuts, and the viability of operating a new monorail under limited resources.
According to his lawyer, he had initially faced additional charges, including promoting ideas calling for terrorist acts online, and deliberately spreading false news and rumors domestically and abroad about internal affairs in a manner “likely to undermine state authority, disturb public order, spread fear, and harm the public interest.” These were later excluded from the referral to trial.
International and local human rights organizations have condemned Omar’s detention and called for Egyptian authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally.
In September 2025, UN human rights experts stated they were “deeply concerned” over Omar’s continued detention and the “sweeping misuse of counter-terrorism legislation in Egypt to silence artists and journalists and curtail freedom of expression.”
According to a domestic count by the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), 26 journalists and media workers were either held in pretrial detention or standing trial during that same month.
Joining a terrorist group is one of the most serious charges under anti-terror law, punishable by rigorous imprisonment that may extend to long-term prison sentences depending on the case. Authorities have widely used it in broad terms to incarcerate journalists and political activists in Egypt.
