Australian man arrested and imprisoned in Cairo since January

Cairo: Egyptian authorities have detained an Australian man on charges of spreading false news and supporting a terrorist organisation, according to his lawyer.

Hazem Hamouda, 54, was detained shortly after landing at Cairo International Airport on January 25, the anniversary of Egypt’s 2011 revolt.

Hazem Hamouda,with his granddaughter, Aveline.

Mr Hamouda’s children maintain that their father has no history of political activism in Egypt, but rather that his activity on Facebook in Australia, which in the past included material sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, may be the cause of his arrest.

His arrest was one of the latest amidst a tumultuous pre-election crackdown by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as Egypt heads to the polls on March 26.

Mr Hamouda, who lives in Brisbane, was born in Cairo and was serving in the Egyptian Navy when he met his Australian wife in Victoria in 1987. But he has lived in Australia since. He became a citizen in 1993.

Mr Hamouda with his Australian born daughter, Lamisse, 28.

He had travelled to Egypt to join his children on a short holiday. He texted them after landing but failed to meet them outside the airport as planned. After waiting several hours, they were informed by airport workers that Mr Hamouda had been taken by National security.

The three older children, Saja, 22, Harun, 19 and Lamisse, 28, all born and raised in Australia and with little knowledge of Cairo’s sprawling metropolis, home to over 25 million people, began to search police stations across the city, but to no avail. Nobody would tell them where their father was.

“For the first few days we were in a complete state of disbelief and panic, but also trying to stay calm and respect the advice to follow the rules of the country to help Dad. But it been very frustrating as we have come across constant obstacles to getting answers”, said his eldest daughter Lamisse.

After more than a week of searching, the family found that Mr Hamouda was being held in the notorious maximum security Tora prison south of Cairo. He had managed to smuggle out a letter. Trying to remain calm, he reassured his wife that he was unharmed, and urged the family to contact Australian authorities.

Two other letters have been subsequently smuggled out of the prison and are less upbeat. In them Mr Hamouda details the poor conditions and treatment he’s receiving. Mr Hamouda has a heart condition and needs daily medication but it remains unclear whether he has had access to medical treatment which is often denied to prisoners at Tora.

The Australian Embassy is Cairo have said they are working on Hamouda’s case, but no consular visit has been made since his arrest.

His family say that embassy staff could be doing more to better support them as they have felt that the staff could have been more forthcoming with details of Mr Hamouda’s case, but instead were told that due to privacy regulations even the closest family members could not be briefed on the relevant information without Mr Hamouda’s permission.

“To be constantly barred from knowing what’s happening and being left in the dark is very distressing. This is my father, I’m his closest relative in Cairo, if I am not authorised to know what’s going on then who is?

"We didn’t expect this kind of bureaucracy from the Australian authorities,” Lamisse said.

Requests to visit their father in prison have also been denied by Egyptian authorities.

After lodging a complaint with the public prosecutor, the family were told there would be a hearing at the State Security prosecution on the outskirts of Eastern Cairo on February 10, where they hoped they would catch sight of their father. But the hearing took place behind closed doors days earlier and Mr Hamouda’s pretrial detention was renewed for another 15 days.

Another hearing held on Thursday also saw Mr Hamouda’s pretrial detention extended for a further 15 days.

According to his lawyer Sameh Samir, Mr Hamouda’s case was initially added to that of former presidential candidate and government critic Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, who was arrested last week following an interview with Qatari news channel Al Jazeera in which he criticised President Sisi.

Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. Credit: Bloomberg

Mr Samir says Mr Hamouda is now part of a larger case that includes Mohamed al-Qassas, the deputy of Dr Aboul Fotouh's political party along with several well-known activists, bloggers and journalists. None of whom Mr Hamouda has ever met according to his children.

In a similar incident, a 20-year-old woman from Alexandria was sentenced to three years in prison in January after hosting Facebook pages with content related to the outlawed group.

Mr Hamouda’s arrest came on the anniversary of the mass protests that culminated in the ouster of long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak. It also comes amid a tense political climate in Egypt which has seen the intimidation and arrest of several potential election candidates, the blocking of hundreds of websites and the ban of popular TV shows in recent months.

Prominent opposition figures who have labelled the election process a charade and called for a boycott are also being investigated on charges of trying to destabilise the country.

Australian journalist Peter Greste spent over a year also in Tora prison after being arrested with two Al Jazeera colleagues and convicted on similar charges of spreading false news. Mr Greste was later sent back to Australia.

Following the trial of Mr Greste and his colleagues which garnered widespread international condemnation a presidential decree was enacted that allows for foreign nationals to be deported back to their home countries to either be tried or serve their sentences.

Mr Hamouda’s family are hopeful the same law could be applied to their father, but fear he may be kept in pretrial detention for years as he is now part of a politicised case with 63 other defendants, and cases of similar size and nature often take years to be heard.

Mr Hamouda’s oldest daughter, Lamisse who is currently studying for her masters at The American University in Cairo, said she found the uncertainty of her father’s predicament the hardest to bear.

“We are so worried for his health and wellbeing and the wellbeing of our family as this goes on, and the stress of not having him with us," she said.

"Our hearts go out to all families in similar situations, and we just hope for this nightmare to end.”