Freelance photojournalist Mohamed Abdel Moneim was arrested while covering a protest by supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in the Cairo neighborhood of Dar el-Salam on April 24, 2015, according to news reports.
Prosecutors charged him with participating in an illegal protest and belonging to a banned group, the reports said. The court sentenced Abdel Moneim to three years in prison on January 3, 2016.
Mohsen Shaaban, a journalist at the privately owned Tahya Masr, told CPJ that he testified in court that the photographer was on assignment for Tahya Masr and that he was in his second month of training with the paper at the time of the arrest. Shaaban was editor-in-chief of the paper at the time, a role he vacated in late 2015.
Abdel Moneim wrote a letter from prison which was published by local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture Observatory in June 2016. The journalist described the treatment of “political prisoners,” who he said were dealt with as if they had “been branded with shame.” Prison authorities refused the entry of items such as toothpaste to prisoners, he wrote.
Abdel Moneim is being held in Wadi al-Natroun prison outside Cairo. He is appealing his sentence, according to news reports. CPJ could not determine the status of the appeal in late 2016.