Egypt renews detention of satirical cartoonist Ashraf Omar for 15 days

An Egyptian state security prosecutor renewed, on Sunday, satirical cartoonist Ashraf Omar's detention in a case that had raised concerns in Egypt and worldwide over restrictions imposed on free expression in the Arab World's most populous country.

Held via video conference briefly in Omar's absence, his detention has been renewed for the second time for another 15 days pending further investigations into the charges allegedly "being involved in a terrorist group, disseminating false news and misusing social media tools."

Over the past decade, regime critics, activists and journalists were commonly detained and accused with a set of similar charges, with no evidence.

On Saturday, Omar's wife, Nada Mougheeth, told The New Arab following her visit to her husband in prison that she was "optimistic" about his fate after sensing some "good signs."

"He seemed fine and said he was well-treated, spending his time teaching his cellmates English. He was allowed to exercise in the open air for a while every day...even the prison guards were nice to me and treated me with some respect," she added that day.

The case against Omar, also a translator, is believed to have been ignited by several of his outspoken cartoons published in independent online news outlets about, arguably, poor performance of the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

In a cartoon published on Al-Manassa online news outlets, one of the few remaining independent voices in Egypt, Omar depicts an official as a thief offering the Egyptian map to a man dressed in a traditional Gulf outfit and holding a shopping cart.

In the drawing, Omar refers to sale of state assets to wealthy gulf nations, especially the United Arab of Emirates, to solve the hard currency crisis.

Last month, both freelance journalist Khaled Mamdouh and Omar were detained from their homes during separate night raids by security forces and taken to undisclosed locations as their whereabouts were denied by the authorities for days.

Both men appeared later before the state prosecutors and were accused of the same charges but in different cases. Such accusations have been commonly used over the past decade against regime critics, activists and journalists.

Media freedom and civil rights have significantly deteriorated since Sisi seised power following a military coup in 2013. 

Some 600 local and international news sites have also been blocked in Egypt, including A-Manassa and Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the Arabic-language sister publication of TNA, whereas 23 Egyptian journalists are currently imprisoned— many of them detained without trial.

Mougheeth does not seem to give up after all. In a Facebook post she shared on Monday about the prison visit she made a day earlier, she wrote that her partner felt sad about time being wasted in jail and that he asked her to continue her professional and academic pursuits against all the odds.

She posted a screened shot of part of a motivational letter Omar gave to her, saying, "Nada, my love, my life, be brave…work hard on your tasks and research studies. I will be very sad if what I am going through holds you back."

Mougheeth is a lecturer of Chinese language at a prestigious Egyptian academy, as well as a translator.

"Amid all what he has been through, Ashraf has been worried about losing time…our home has been violated, our savings stolen, but enough violating our time and enough robbing us of our time and life," the distressed wife concluded.