Journalist Ahmed Gamal Ziada on father’s arrest: What’s happening with my father is a crackdown on journalists

Gamal Ziada, the father of journalist Ahmed Gamal Ziada, is currently being held in detention facilities pending investigation into false news charges.

Mamdouh Gamal, Ziada’s lawyer, told Mada Masr that the State Security Prosecution issued an order for him to be detained for 15 days on Wednesday.

“What’s happening with my father is a crackdown on journalists and their work,” said Ahmed Gamal Ziada in a post published on his personal Facebook page, condemning the authorities for targeting his family as retribution for his professional activity.

Rights organizations have documented a number of cases over recent years in which relatives of politically engaged activists, academics and media figures — especially those residing abroad — have been targeted by security authorities in relation to their family members’ work.

Though his father runs a clothing workshop and only owns a personal social media account with a small number of friends and family, he is being investigated for the misuse of social media, spreading false news and joining a banned organization, according to Ahmed Ziada.

“My father has never participated in any partisan or political work,” he said.

Authorities nevertheless arrested Ziada on August 22, according to lawyer Mamdouh Gamal, who said Ahmed’s sister saw security forces dressed in civilian clothes exit two microbuses and arrest her father.

“He’s a 65-year-old man who suffers from chronic illnesses in the bones, especially his feet. He cannot bear detention,” said Gamal.

According to his family, who spoke with the Swiss-based human rights association Committee for Justice, Ziada was questioned by the National Security Agency about “his journalist son’s activities.”

Ahmed Gamal Ziada has undergone detention and other security restrictions as well in relation to his politics and his writing. He was arrested in 2013 while covering clashes between Al-Azhar University students and security forces and was held in remand pending investigation for over 500 days — long beyond the legal limit on the duration of detention without trial for the most serious charges. He was acquitted in April 2015.

Ahmed was arrested again at Cairo International Airport after returning from Tunisia in 2019 and was questioned on “spreading false news” charges before the prosecution released him on LE10,000 bail in the same year. He subsequently traveled to Belgium to study international relations and political science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

A number of instances in which security authorities have targeted the families of activists based abroad have been documented since August 2020.“Authorities try to intimidate critics with unlawful home raids, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and prolonged detention of family members without trial or charges,” said Human Rights Watch in February 2021, noting security harassment faced by the families of US-based activist Mohamed Soltan, Germany-based academic Taqadum al-Khatib, UK-based activist Mona al-Shazly, and Turkey-based opposition TV presenter Hesham Abdallah, among others.