Gamal, a photojournalist for the online news network Yaqeen, was arrested on December 28, 2013, while covering student protests at Al-Azhar University in the Nasr City neighborhood of Cairo, according to news reports.
Yahya Khalaf, Yaqeen’s executive director, told CPJ that Gamal was accused on April 10, 2014, of participating in an illegal demonstration and assaulting a police officer. He had not been officially charged. A court postponed his hearing until late 2014. No trial date had been set as of late 2014, according to his lawyer.
Khalaf told CPJ that Yaqeen had submitted documents that showed Gamal was working for the network at the time of his arrest. He was being held at Abu Zaabal prison.
On July 26, 2014, Gamal sent a letter to the local press freedom group Journalists Against Torture in which he said that he had been beaten and attacked in Abu Zaabal prison, according to news reports. In August 2014, Gamal began waging a hunger strike to protest his detention, according to news reports.