Novelist wanted in Egypt for ‘insulting president and judiciary’

Famous Egyptian novelist and writer Alaa Al-Aswany is wanted in Egypt for “insulting president, armed forces and judicial institutions,” his publisher revealed on Tuesday.

The French publisher Actes Sud said that the charges against the bestselling Egyptian writer related to columns he published in Deutsche Welle Arabic, and to his latest novel “The Republic, As If”, which recounts the events of the 2011 revolution in Egypt.

According to the Guardian, he wrote on Facebook, the case was “a clear violation of article 65 of the Egyptian constitution, which states, ‘Freedom of thought and opinion is guaranteed. All individuals have the right to express their opinion through speech, writing, imagery, or any other means of expression and publication.’”

He also wrote that it was also “a violation of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Egypt is a signatory.”

The writer told Les Nouveaux Dissidents: “I am being pursued because I bear witness to what I saw and what I lived, and because of my writings. For having said what I think. For having expressed myself and for giving my opinion. I am a writer, and what I write displeases the regime.”

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