CAIRO (Reuters) -
Egypt's vice squad raided the offices of
a publisher and blogger, already detained for backing a general
strike last week, and took away copies of one of his
publications, his fiancee said on Tuesday.
Their main target was the graphic novel Metro by author
Magdy al-Shafei, which came out in January and has already been
widely sold, fiancee Naira El Sheikh told Reuters.
The publisher is Mohamed el Sharkawi, who has been in
custody since April 6, the day activists called for a general
strike to coincide with a textile strike in the Nile Delta.
"They made the accountant, who was the only person in the
office, sign an undertaking to ensure that any copies returned
are sent to the vice police," she added.
Sheikh said she interpreted the raid as an act of revenge
by the police, who were much criticized in 2006 and 2007 for
their treatment of Sharkawi during an earlier spell in custody.
Sharkawi says police tortured and raped him.
"They are settling their score with him. It's payback time
for him because of the media frenzy last year," she said.
Police also took away contracts and downloaded the phone
number memory from the land line, she added.
The vice squad usually deals with sexual offences but
Sheikh said the novel had no more sex than other recent
publications which have not had trouble with the authorities.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said they had no information
about the raid.
(Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Matthew Jones)
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