Egypt extends pre-trial detention of journalist Tawfik Ghanem

The Cairo Criminal Court yesterday extended the pre-trial detention of journalist Tawfik Ghanem and three others for a period of 45 days. Ghanem has been held for two years and seven months, far longer than the two-year limit of pre-trial detention stipulated by law.

The sixty-eighty-year-old, who served as the regional bureau chief of the Turkish Anadolu Agency news wire, is being held on charges of “joining a terrorist group, spreading false news and misusing social media.”

The court has repeatedly rejected his lawyer’s request to release him on humanitarian grounds, given that he suffers from diabetes and other serious illnesses.

Egyptian security forces arrested Ghanem on 22 May 2021 from his home in the Giza Governorate. He was forcibly disappeared for five days before appearing at the State Security Prosecution in Cairo.

Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have joined 11 human rights groups to call on Egypt to release Ghanem.

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