Skip to content
  • Image
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Podcasts
  • Email
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Contact
The Arab Daily News

The Arab Daily News

Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem

  • About
    • About
    • Our Writers
    • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
    • Book Store
    • Contact
    • Submit Book Reviews, Press Releases
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Corrections Policy
    • Profile on Ray Hanania
    • Submit Press Release
  • Features
    • Food
    • Book Review
    • Humor
    • Movies
    • Travel
  • Arab Stores Targeted
  • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Community Network Page
    • Arab Heritage America resources
    • Directory
      • Groups & Organizations
      • Mosques, Churches
      • Restaurants
      • 2008 & 2014 Arab Media Directories
    • National Arab Heritage Month
    • Video: Chicago Arab History
    • Video: Photo Array of Chicago Arabs
    • Overview of Arabs in America
    • Hanania standup comedy
    • Arabs on the Titanic
    • Obituaries
  • Podcasts
    • Ray Hanania on Politics Podcast
    • Arab News Ray Hanania Radio
    • Arab Radio Podcast intro
    • Radio Baladi Detroit
  • Hanania on Tiktok
  • Subscribe to Ray’s Columns
  • Toggle search form
  • US Senator Bernie Sanders
    Sanders: Trump Welcomes War Criminal to White House American Arabs
  • Al-Haq
    War crimes probe urged against two Israeli snipers who intentionally killed civilian women, children Christian & Muslim
  • CAIR Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad
    CAIR Says Israel Turns Gaza into ‘Human Slaughterhouse’ as Killing of Civilians Continues Arab World
  • photo credit author Nehemia Gershuni-Aylho www.NGPhoto.biz and Wikipedia
    Emergency Court Motions to Stop Elbit Drone Parts Shipment via Frankfurt Airport  Activism
  • American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh murdered by Israeli soldiers May 11, 2022
    Documentary names soldier it says killed Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022 American Arabs
  • Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ
    Jordan bans 12 news sites for ‘spreading media poison’ following corruption report Arab World
  • CAIR Logo. Council on American Islamic Relations
    CAIR Condemns MIT for banning Class President from Graduation Ceremony over Anti-Genocide speech Activism
  • ADC creates emergency fund to defend people who are being punished for expressing views on the American-sanction violence by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Photo courtesy of ADC
    ADC Condemns ADL, Rep. Torres’ Defamation of Dr. Lara Sheehi Activism
  • UN Special Committee on Israeli practices in occupied territories warns of a second Nakba  Arab World
  • Arab American community liaison Hassan Nijem, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Basta at the Arab American Heritage Month event hosted by Pappas’s office.
    Pappas honors Arab American business and community leaders for Heritage Month Activism
  • 04-28-25 Pappas Arab Heritage Month
    Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recognizes Arab American Heritage Month by honoring business and community leaders American Arabs
  • Stuffed Grape Leaves. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    A recipe on how to make Stuffed Grape Leaves with lamb, ox tail and rice American Arabs
  • Andrew Boutros, interim US Attorney Northern District of Illinois. Photo courtesy of the US Attorney's Office
    Andrew S. Boutros Takes Oath of Office as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois American Arabs
  • Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians March 18 2025
    Palestinians demand investigation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza Strip Arab World
  • Illinois Muslim Action Day April 9 2025
    Illinois Muslim Action Day Policies at April 9 Statehouse News Conference American Arabs

Health of journalist Hisham Gaafar deteriorates in jail

Posted on August 16, 2017August 16, 2017 By rayhanania No Comments on Health of journalist Hisham Gaafar deteriorates in jail
SHARE ...
          
 
  

  • Tweet

Health of journalist Hisham Gaafar deteriorates in jail

Held 21 Months Without Trial Despite Serious Illness

Egyptian authorities should immediately provide appropriate health care to the imprisoned journalist Hisham Gaafar, whose health, including his eyesight, is deteriorating in detention, Human Rights Watch said today. If prison authorities are unable to provide him necessary health care, they should allow him to seek care in private health facilities.

The Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency arrested Gaafar, director of the Mada Foundation for Media Development, a private media company, at his office in October 2015. Prosecutors have ordered Gaafar detained pending investigation on charges that include membership in the Muslim Brotherhood and illegally receiving foreign funds for his foundation, his lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt February 2011. Photo courtesy of Zemanta/Wikipedia
Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt February 2011. Photo courtesy of Zemanta/Wikipedia

“Egypt’s Interior Ministry has shown contempt for Hisham Gaafar’s health and well-being,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that the Interior Ministry refuses to provide him his rightful care is a sad testament to Egyptian authorities’ disregard for detainees’ most basic rights.”

Gaafar, 53, has an eye condition – optic nerve atrophy – that requires ongoing specialist care or he may risk losing his sight altogether. He also suffers from a years-long prostate enlargement condition and risks complications if he does not receive the proper treatment. His eyesight is deteriorating and his health has worsened during his time in detention, in poor conditions, his family said.

Immediately following his arrest, police took Gaafar to his home, where officers seized his personal publications, work papers, computers, and phones, including those belonging to his wife and children. They detained his family inside the home for 17 hours. Security officers confiscated all his medical documents and reports and have not returned them to his family, despite their requests.

National Security officers then took Gaafar to an undisclosed location and held him for two days without access to his family or lawyers. His family heard of his whereabouts when a lawyer saw him by coincidence in the Supreme State Security Prosecution office in Cairo. Prosecutors have kept him in pretrial detention since then.

Under Egyptian law, prosecutors have broad power to hold those suspected of committing major offenses, including political and national security crimes, in pretrial detention for up to five months without regular judicial review, and judges can extend the detention for up to two years without requiring any substantive justification from prosecutors.

A judge should immediately review the necessity and legality of Gaafar’s detention and either send him to trial without further delays or release him, Human Rights Watch said.

During Gaafar’s time in detention, most of it spent in the maximum security Scorpion Prison in Cairo, the Interior Ministry’s Prisons Authority has not provided needed medicine but has intermittently allowed Gaafar to receive the eye vitamins and prostate medicine he required, after completely banning such supplies for the first two months of his detention. During those two months, his wife, Manar, told Human Right Watch, prison authorities kept Gaafar alone in a cell that, in his words, resembled a “tomb” without sunlight.

Later, they allowed his family very short and irregular visits, with no chance to verify whether he had received the medicine they had given to prison guards for him. Since March 2017, prison authorities have again denied him visits from relatives and his lawyer.

Before he was detained, Gaafar used special optic tools to read and glasses for everyday life. He also needed some assistance in his daily routine, his wife said. Prison authorities allowed his wife to deliver the glasses several months after his detention, but when they reached him, they were broken. The way the glasses were broken suggested it had been deliberate, his wife said. She delivered new ones, but he has not had a new eye examination. His wife said that he recently told her he was not seeing as well as before, even with the glasses, suggesting his eyesight may have deteriorated.

Gaafar has had optic nerve atrophy in both eyes since he was a teenager, according to his wife. Medical documents and reports from 2012, which she provided to Human Rights Watch after she retrieved them from a hospital, stated that at the time he had only 10 percent of his vision remaining in his left eye. Optic nerve atrophy has no cure, but it can be slowed by exposure to sunlight, medicine, and a healthy diet, his wife said doctors had told them. These are not available in adequate amounts to inmates at Scorpion Prison and many other Egyptian detention facilities.

A Human Rights Watch report on Scorpion Prison, published in 2016, documented cruel and inhuman treatment by officers of the Interior Ministry’s Prisons Authority that probably amounted to torture, including preventing food and medicine deliveries and other interference in medical care that may have contributed to prisoners’ deaths.

Hisham Gaafar sits on his bed in detention. His health has rapidly worsened while in detention, including marked weight loss, deteriorating eyesight, and a chronic prostate condition.

Gaafar’s wife said he appeared weak and to have lost significant weight during her March 2017 visit. She said she saw bite marks all over his body, which he said were from insects that had infested his cell due to a sewage leak. He told her he had suffered pain for weeks because he was sleeping on the concrete floor without a mattress. Human Rights Watch previously documented that Scorpion Prison authorities deny inmates a wide variety of basic necessities for hygiene and comfort, including beds, pillows, and mattresses.

In late February 2016, after a public outcry and growing criticism from the Journalists’ Syndicate, human rights organizations, and public figures, the authorities transferred Gaafar to the Tora Prison Hospital after he began suffering from urinary retention – the inability to fully empty his bladder. Prison authorities then transferred him to al-Manial University Hospital, which is affiliated with Cairo University. Doctors who examined him there on March 4, and again on March 10, 2016, asked prison officials to allow him to be kept at Cairo University hospitals to prepare for more tests, including diagnostic surgery on his enlarged prostate, the apparent cause of the urinary retention.

Gaafar spent five months at the prisoners’ ward at Qasr al-Aini Hospital, where ill inmates who are hospitalized are usually held, but the authorities repeatedly failed to give Gaafar timely permission to go for needed tests. Human Rights Watch has previously documentedthat prison authorities pressure hospitals not to admit inmates or to return them without necessary treatment.

Gaafar told his wife that he received very little medical care there. In August 2016, the authorities sent Gaafar back to Scorpion Prison before he had undergone the examinations that he was told he needed. Prison authorities and Cairo University hospitals have not allowed Gaafar’s family to read or obtain a copy of the medical reports issued during his detention, his wife said.

The family managed to obtain the hospital discharge report through unofficial means, however, and provided a copy to Human Rights Watch. The report contained no detailed information on any tests Gaafar may have undergone or treatment received but stated that he suffers from “mild prostate enlargement that needed no surgery.” The report did not state what caused the enlargement or whether it was benign or cancerous – a primary concern for the family.

A couple of days after returning to prison, Gaafar found blood in his urine, and officers transferred him again to Tora Prison Hospital. But the facilities there lack a urology specialist, his wife said, and the prison authorities have refused to arrange for Gaafar to be seen by one. He appeared before a court in August 2016 carrying a urinary catheter, his lawyers said.

His wife said that after filing several complaints, a National Security officer visited Gaafar in detention in November 2016, and told him, “don’t worry, we will treat you.” But Gaafar’s request to seek treatment in a private health facility was ignored.

One of his lawyers and his wife both told Human Rights Watch that prosecutors never allowed them to obtain a copy of the official charges against him or the rest of his case file. However, Hossam al-Sayed, another Mada Foundation journalist who was arrested with Gaafar on the same day, was released without bail in March 2016, said the lawyer Karim Abd al-Rady.

Under an amendment to the penal code decreed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in September 2014, Gaafar could face a 25-year sentence if convicted of receiving foreign funds illegally.

Prisoners have the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Egypt ratified in 1982.

The Committee Against Torture, the monitoring body of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment – ratified by Egypt in 1986 – has found that failure to provide adequate medical care can violate the treaty’s prohibition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

“It is deeply concerning that Egypt’s judiciary has become complicit in human rights violations by cruelly detaining people like Gaafar for years without justification, exposing them to serious abuse and harm,” Whitson said.

newswire info
  • About
  • Latest Posts
rayhanania
rayhanania
Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News
Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.  

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.

Follow RayHanania at Twitter
rayhanania
Latest posts by rayhanania (see all)
  • Israelisnipers shooting and killing hospital workers in Gaza - December 11, 2023
  • CAIR Condemns Israeli Executions of Wounded, Unarmed Palestinian in West Bank   - December 11, 2023
  • Arab and Muslim American voters face a “simple choice” between Biden’s inhumanity and Trump’s edgy politics - December 9, 2023

  • Tweet

SHARE ...
          
 
  
 
          
 
 Tweet 
Arab World, Middle East, News, News Media, North Africa, Press Releases Tags:Arab World, detention, Egypt, Hisham Gaafar, journalist, Middle East, news media, prison

Post navigation

Previous Post: Alhurra.com opens the door for independent voices in the Middle East
Next Post: International Criminal Court issues warrant for Libyan leader

Related Posts

  • American Arab pushes for voter empowerment Activism
  • Palestinians protest Israeli violence with creative talents Arab World
  • ADC Panel on Sept. 11 impact on Arabs and Muslims Aug. 16, 2021
    ADC Panel August 16 explores how media portrayed Arabs after Sept. 11 Activism
  • Samar Khalaf, ADC President, 2013-2020
    Khalaf announces his retirement as ADC president American Arabs
  • Embattled World Cup host Qatar sends mixed messages Arab World
  • Closure notice posted on the doors and windows of Arab American businesses during Mayor Lori Lightfoot's closure of Arab owned stores in June - Sept. 2021. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania
    Chicago aldermen to host forum on Arab businesses closed by Mayor Lightfoot American Arabs

More Related Articles

Solar Eclipse movie, Mahatma Gandhi poster. Photo courtesy of PR News Wire Movie on Gandhi sneak peek at Dubai film festival Features
Gas station image gasoline pump. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania Arab gas station owners targeted in futile Lightfoot stunt to stop street gang violence Activism
Columnist Ray Hanania at the ADC Convention in Dearborn with the author Susan Abulhawa Book Review: Mornings in Jenin bySusan Abulhawa Activism
Send us your Arab American calendar events Press Releases
UNICEF launches Global Appeal for Displaced Syrian Children with Western Union Activism
AHRC and the Islamic Center of Detroit (ICD) hosted a community forum and discussion with the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. AHRC and ICD Hold Meet, Greet and Open Conversation with USCIS: American Arabs

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Ray Hanania's 4 times a week columns at https://RayHanania.com at Substack

Enter Your Email to Subscribe to Ray Hanania’s Columns

  • OPINION COLUMNS
  • Photo courtesy of Journalist Abdennour Toumi
    France: Political Compromise vs Political Instability
    August 28, 2024
  • Zakia Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia
    Arabs eat Middle East food like they are making love
    June 27, 2024
  • Zwar lamb kabob and kufta with white and yellow rice
    Zwar ranked the Best Middle East restaurant in Chicagoland suburbs
    June 8, 2024
  • Pictured: Rahm Emanuel, Afghan activist Salman Aftab who was co-chair of the Iftar dinner, and several non-Arab Muslim leaders. Also pictured is Ald. Joe Moore. Photo courtesy of Ray Hanania for Arab News
    Comprehensive look at the failings of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
    January 18, 2024
  • NEWSWIRE
  • CAIR Logo. Council on American Islamic Relations
    CAIR Condemns MIT for banning Class President from Graduation Ceremony over Anti-Genocide speech
    June 1, 2025
  • Arab American community liaison Hassan Nijem, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and Bolingbrook Mayor Mary Basta at the Arab American Heritage Month event hosted by Pappas’s office.
    Pappas honors Arab American business and community leaders for Heritage Month
    April 29, 2025
  • 04-28-25 Pappas Arab Heritage Month
    Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recognizes Arab American Heritage Month by honoring business and community leaders
    April 27, 2025
  • Mike Ghouse
    Celebration of 500th Interfaith Marriage Ceremony
    February 14, 2025

Creative Commons License
All work on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Do not edit original work. Give credit to the original source.

  • NEWS
  • US Senator Bernie Sanders
    Sanders: Trump Welcomes War Criminal to White House
    July 9, 2025
  • Al-Haq
    War crimes probe urged against two Israeli snipers who intentionally killed civilian women, children
    July 2, 2025
  • BOOK REVIEWS
  • Faisal Abbas Book Anecdotes
    Book Review: Arab author shares his anecdotes living in the United Kingdom
    October 22, 2024
  • Columnist Ray Hanania at the ADC Convention in Dearborn with the author Susan Abulhawa
    Book Review: Mornings in Jenin bySusan Abulhawa
    September 14, 2024
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • Television set and remote. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
    MBC GROUP unveils MBCNOW, its brand-new groundbreaking entertainment service aggregator
    February 24, 2025
  • ArabCon 2024 Gala Program features Dr. Cornel West, Macklemore, and more
    September 6, 2024
  • New-iTunes-1400-x-1400-The-Ray-Hanania-Show-Podcast-Icon-300-x-300.jpg
  • The-Kings-Pawn-Book-300-x-300.png
  • Podcast-iTunes-Logo-Chi-City-Hall-1985.jpg
  • powerpr300x300ad.jpg
  • terroristbookcover-300-x-300.jpg
Arab News Newspaper Logo
Read the Arab News, the leading English language newspaper in the MIddle East

Follow Ray Hanania at
Twitter
Facebook
TitkTok
BlueSky
RayHanania Columns

Click here to get information on The Ray Hanania Radio Show and its podcasts

Copyright © 2025 The Arab Daily News.

Powered by PressBook Premium theme