Egyptian dissident writer Alaa al-Aswany sued by military prosecutors

Bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building says case against him violates Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Alaa al-Aswany, the bestselling Egyptian author of The Yacoubian Building, has been sued by military prosecutors in Egypt for “insulting the president, the armed forces and judicial institutions”.

According to his French publisher, Actes Sud, the accusations relate to the columns Aswany has published in Deutsche Welle Arabic, and to his latest novel The Republic, As If, which recounts the events of the 2011 revolution in Egypt. On his Facebook page, Aswany said the case against him was “a clear violation of article 65 of the Egyptian constitution[pdf], which states, ‘Freedom of thought and opinion is guaranteed. All individuals have the right to express their opinion through speech, writing, imagery, or any other means of expression and publication’,” and that it was also “a violation of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Egypt is a signatory”.

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