Media advocates are criticizing Egypt for its “oppression” of journalists following the arrests of a cartoonist and a reporter.
Egyptian authorities arrested the journalists as part of a wider crackdown that came in response to calls for protests over President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s handling of the economy.
The protests did not take place, but authorities arrested around 125 people, including Khaled Mamdouh and Ashraf Omar. Both were held incommunicado for several days.
Dozens of journalists gathered at the headquarters of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo last week to protest the arrests and show solidarity with jailed colleagues, Yeganeh Rezaian told VOA. She is the interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ.
Nader Hashemi, an associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, said the crackdown “reminds us of the severe human rights crisis in Egypt today.”
“These types of arrests are not new in Egypt,” Hashemi told VOA via email.
Omar, a cartoonist for the independent news outlet Al-Manassa, was arrested at his home in Giza early on July 22, a media group said.
A human rights lawyer was cited in Omar’s media outlet as saying that when she went to a police station to ask if the cartoonist was there, the officers denied he was in their custody.
Terry Anderson, director of Cartoonists Rights, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of editorial cartoonists under threat, said in a statement July 23 that Omar’s colleagues were working with the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate to “ensure his safety, represent him legally and prevent the authorities from oppressing journalists and acting outside the framework of the law.”
Mamdouh, a reporter at the Arabic Post, was arrested in Mokattam, Cairo, on July 16. Authorities took both him and Omar to undisclosed locations and their whereabouts were not known for five days, Reuters reported.
Mamdouh was later ordered to be held in pretrial detention on charges of joining and sponsoring a terrorist organization and spreading fake news.
Egypt's State Information Service did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.
Cairo has long used accusations of belonging to or promoting terrorist organizations as a pretext to jail journalists, say media watchdogs. Those in custody often have their pre-trial detention repeatedly extended.
One of those is Yasser Abu Al-Ela, a freelance journalist arrested in Egypt earlier this year.
Rezaian said Abu Al-Ela has twice had his detention period extended.
Abu Al-Ela has told authorities that he is being subjected to “physical and psychological torture” and held in solitary confinement. His wife, Naglaa Fathi, was also detained and charged after filing complaints with authorities, Rezaian added.
Egypt has a poor record for jailing journalists. At least 13 journalists were imprisoned there as of late 2023, according to CPJ. Nearly all of them are held on anti-state charges.
Rezaian said that as the number of journalists jailed in Egypt rises, Cairo’s “allies, the U.S. and EU countries, who are also members of the Media Freedom Coalition, have not condemned the arrests or called for their release.”
“This muted stance on Sissi's crackdown on Egyptian journalists is emboldening him to expand his repression,” Rezaian said.
Egypt ranks among the worst countries for media freedom, coming in at 170th out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index.
Some information for this report came from Reuters.
