CAIRO — “The world has not forgotten [Shawkan],” Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo said on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, May 3, in an address at a ceremony in Accra awarding the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to the Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, better known as Shawkan. Akufo-Addo called on the individuals and institutions fighting for Shawkan's release from an Egyptian prison not to lose hope. 

UNESCO had announced its awarding of the prize to Shawkan on April 23, a day after Egypt's Foreign Ministry expressed its opposition to the organization doing so. In an April 22 statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said, “The Foreign Ministry regrets the involvement of an organization like UNESCO in honoring a person accused of terrorist acts, homicides, assault on policemen and citizens as well as the burning and destruction of public and private property.”

Abu Zeid continued, “Following the UNESCO decision, the Foreign Ministry commissioned Egypt’s delegate to UNESCO in Paris, Ihab Badawi, to hand over to the secretariat of the organization a complete file on all the charges Shawkan is accused of. The charges are of a purely criminal nature and have no political grounds, contrary to what some human rights activists defending Shawkan have claimed. These charges have nothing to do with his practice of journalism or freedom of expression.” 

Close colleagues of Shawkan told Al-Monitor that he had been working as a photojournalist for about 10 years when he was arrested on August 14, 2013, as Egyptian security forces dispersed the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. He worked at Al-Ahram al-Massai, a newspaper, for six months before becoming a freelancer. He then worked with several agencies, including Demotix, the British photo agency for which he was covering the 2013 demonstrations.