Four days since disappearance of photojournalist following national security summons

There was still no news regarding the whereabouts of freelance photojournalist Mohamed El Raai on Sunday, four days after he was summoned to the National Security Agency office in the Cairo neighborhood of Shubra al-Kheima on Wednesday. His family has filed missing persons reports with the public prosecutor and the office of the interior minister. 

Two officers from the Shubra al-Kheima police station went to his house on Monday last week and left a phone number for him to call, a source close to Raai’s family told Mada Masr. After returning to the house Raai called the number, and was summoned to appear at the National Security office the following day. 

The photographer went to the NSA office on Tuesday at noon, and was interrogated for five hours about his work and the outlets he works with, according to the source. Raai's work has appeared in multiple Egyptian and international outlets, including the Associated Press, Vice Arabia, Xinhua and Mada Masr. He was released, and then summoned again the same evening. He returned to the office on Wednesday morning, where he was questioned for another three hours. 

Half an hour after his release, officials summoned him again, and Raai returned to the NSA office for a third time on Wednesday at around 3 pm. His family has not been able to make contact with him since then, nor has any official entity made a statement regarding his whereabouts. 

Reporters Without Borders, the French-based press freedom organization, expressed concern over Raai’s disappearance in an online statement on Friday. 

There were 26 journalists imprisoned in Egypt at the end of 2019, according to a census by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a research-based press freedom organization headquartered in New York. The census counts photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, known as Shawkan, among those imprisoned due to the 12 hours he is required to spend at a police station every night, after serving a five-year prison sentence.