Egypt renews detention of satirical cartoonist for fourth time

An Egyptian state security prosecutor yesterday renewed the detention of satirical cartoonist Ashraf Omar for 15 days for the fourth time pending investigation into his alleged involvement “in a terrorist group, disseminating false news and misusing social media tools”.

A member of Omar’s defence team and human rights lawyer, Nabeel Al-Janady, told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site that the session on whether to renew Omar’s detention was held via video conference in Omar’s absence pending further investigations.

On 18 August, Omar’s detention was renewed for the third time for 15 days.

At the time, his legal team confirmed that he had been beaten and tortured by security forces agents during his arrest and detention at the National Security headquarter, where he remained forcibly disappeared for several days.

Omar appeared at the State Security Prosecution about 48 hours after his enforced disappearance.

Omar works for Al-Manassa online news platform. Prior to his detention,his satirical cartoons criticised Egypt’s electricity crisis, national debt, and the sale of state assets to Gulf investors.

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