Graphic novelist Magdy El Shafee was arrested along with 38 other protesters last week during protests in Egypt’s Riyadh Square.
Ahram Online has more about the arrests. He was charged with “perpetrating violence.” His publisher Henry Holt issued a brief statement:
He was released on bail on Sunday, but may have sustained injuries. He relayed through his publisher that he did not resist arrest, and doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. El Shafee is known as the Godfather of the Egyptian graphic novel, and experienced much censorship, fines, and interrogation when Metro was published in Egypt in 2008.
Henry Holt published Metro last year, you can sample the graphic novel at this link. Here’s more about the artist:
Born in Libya in 1961, Magdy El Shafee is an Egyptian cartoonist, writer, and illustrator who has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry. In 2006, UNESCO honored El Shafee’s comics series “Yasmin and Amina,” written with writer Wa’el Saad and published in the weekly Alaa Eddin, for its depiction of migration and racism. Metro, which addresses Egyptian corruption, poverty, and injustice, was banned on publication in 2008 for “offending public morals” and is unavailable in Arabic.