Cartoonist and translator Ashraf Omar has been arrested by the Egyptian security forces in the early hours of Monday morning, Mada Masr reports.
Home security footage reviewed by Omar’s wife, who was not at the couple’s West Cairo home at the time, shows government officials arriving at the property at 1.30am and the artist being led away blindfolded forty minutes later.
In the past month cartoons by Omar, viewed by AFP, have taken satirical swipes at Egypt’s electricity crisis, the level of national debt and the sale of state assets to Gulf business interests.
Satirical cartoonists have often been targeted by the authoritarian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which is ranked in the bottom ten countries for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders.
In 2016 Islam Gawish was arrested for ‘running a website without a license’ and in 2021 Ashraf Hamdi, the celebrated creator of the Egyptoon brand, was also taken from his home.
Earlier this month journalist Khaled Mamdouh was arrested, joining 23 other media workers behind bars in the North African country.
