The Supreme State Security Prosecution has renewed the detention of director and screenwriter Omar Salah Marei for 15 days pending investigations on the charge of “spreading false news,” his lawyer Nabeh Elganadi told Al Manassa.
Elganadi said Marei attended the detention renewal session by video conference, and that his defense team asked the prosecution to have him examined by doctors and to order an X-ray of his left hand after it became swollen for “unknown reasons.”
He added that the director and screenwriter had undergone surgery shortly before his arrest, during which plates and screws were inserted, and that his condition worsened as a result of his arrest, detention and failure to be examined by specialists.
In a joint statement on May 23, 2026, 18 Egyptian and international human rights organizations warned that Marei’s health was deteriorating because he had been denied treatment since his arrest on the 11th of the same month.
The organizations said Marei’s family had sent official telegrams to the warden of 10th of Ramadan Prison, the Supreme State Security Prosecution and the interior minister, demanding that he be given access to his medication. Marei suffers from a severe thyroid disorder that requires daily treatment, and denying him the medication could lead to life-threatening complications.
According to the statement, Marei also suffers from “swelling in his left arm and complications resulting from being denied medical care and physical therapy after a recent wrist surgery involving the insertion of plates and screws,” which the statement described as a violation of the right to health and a form of “cruel and degrading treatment” prohibited under international law.
The organizations that signed the statement, including El Nadeem Center, the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said Marei’s case was not isolated, but came amid a “sharp contraction of public space and the systematic targeting of artists and creators.”
A plainclothes security force arrested Marei from his home in Sarayat El Maadi on the evening of Monday, May 18, and took him to an unknown location, his wife, Nora El Sayed, told Al Manassa at the time.
She added that the incident began at around 7 pm, when security forces, accompanied by a Central Security Forces vehicle, went to the broker who had rented the apartment to the married couple and asked him about the director’s apartment, before taking him to the building.
She said the force went up to the apartment while Marei was alone inside, then took him, along with the broker and the building’s doorman, to the Maadi Police Department, which later denied he was there.
According to his wife’s account, the broker and the building’s doorman remained inside the police department for about six hours before being released, while the family received no information about Marei.
