This joke, once assumed to be mere exaggeration or dark humor, has become reality over the past decade in Egypt, where targeting human rights defenders has become routine. Among the latest to be targeted is Dr. Aida Seif El-Dawla, director of El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture. She was released by the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which handles political cases, on bail of 100,000 Egyptian pounds, pending investigation in Case No. 809 of 2026 (Supreme State Security). The charges include spreading false news with the intent of disturbing public order, according to press statements by her lawyer, Mahienour El-Masry.
According to the lawyer, the case is based on a report published by El Nadeem Center on “harassment and torture in places of detention,” relying on media archives from 2025.
According to Aida Seif El-Dawla, the report documented 188 incidents and distress calls from detention facilities involving torture and mistreatment in 2025. Some cases of abuse were not limited to prisons, but extended to judicial bodies that are supposed to serve as a refuge for citizens, where state overreach was also observed. Among the reported cases is Sector 2 of Badr 3 Prison, which she described as a “black hole,” citing the complete isolation imposed on detainees, denial of visits for periods exceeding 12 years, and the deprivation of exercise and healthcare.
According to Mahienour El-Masry, Aida Seif El-Dawla was questioned about the sources on which the report was based.
Aida Seif El-Dawla is not an isolated case in the targeting of human rights defenders in Egypt, particularly after June 30. Lawyers themselves have increasingly become targets while defending detainees. This was the case with Mohamed El-Baqer, an Egyptian lawyer and former director and co-founder of the Adalah Center for Rights and Freedoms. He was arrested in September 2019 while attending an interrogation session for Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah. El-Baqer was subsequently added to the same case as Abdel Fattah, Case No. 1356 (Supreme State Security), on charges of joining a terrorist group, without it being named, and spreading false news, without clarification of its nature or content.
After four years in prison, the court ordered El-Baqer’s release. He was eventually freed following a presidential pardon in July 2023. Despite his release, the targeting did not end. In November 2025, more than two years after his release, Egyptian authorities placed his name on terrorism lists for five years.
The presidential pardon granted to El-Baqer also included activist Patrick Zaki, who had been sentenced to three years in prison, a ruling that was not subject to appeal, for publishing an article on Daraj documenting violations against Copts in Egypt in 2019. Zaki had been arrested and tortured at Cairo Airport in February 2020 upon returning for a short visit from Italy, where he was pursuing a master’s degree. He was held in pretrial detention for 22 months before being sentenced, prompting several participants to withdraw from the national dialogue. He was pardoned one day after the sentence was issued.
The circumstances of Mohamed El-Baqer’s arrest mirror those of his colleague Mahienour El-Masry, who was abducted as she left the State Security Prosecution office after attending interrogations of several detainees from the September 2019 protests, which had been called for by Egyptian contractor and opposition figure Mohamed Ali. She was released in July 2021, but during her detention, she was charged in another case with spreading false news and joining a group established in violation of the law.
Harassment against Mahienour El-Masry has not ceased. In August 2025, she was summoned for investigation in relation to 13 complaints filed by citizens between the 9th and 11th of that month. Neither she nor her defense team had access to these complaints, which included accusations of spreading false news. Notably, the Ministries of Interior and Justice responded with unusual سرعة, initiating investigations just two days after the complaints were filed. Mahienour was released on bail set at 50,000 Egyptian pounds, in what marks her fourth case since her arrest in 2019.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) is among the organizations that have faced sustained targeting. Its founding director, Hossam Bahgat, was subjected to a travel ban and asset freeze in 2016. In 2021, he was fined 10,000 Egyptian pounds on charges of insulting the electoral authority and spreading false news. In 2020, the organization’s executive director, Gasser Abdel-Razek, criminal justice director Karim Ennarah, and administrative director Mohamed Basheer were arrested on charges of spreading false news and joining a terrorist group, though they were later released.
However, their release did not end the pressure. They continue to face asset freezes and travel bans. Karim Ennarah was re-arrested after being stopped in the North Coast area and charged again with spreading false news, after refusing a security officer’s request to search his mobile phone. The officer reportedly followed him to a hospital he was visiting to see a friend and arrested him there. He was released in August 2025.
Bahgat himself was targeted again in January 2025, when he was summoned for investigation on terrorism-related charges and later released on bail of 20,000 Egyptian pounds.
Perhaps one of the most affected human rights defenders is Hoda Abdel Moneim. The lawyer, who had been appointed as a member of the National Council for Human Rights by former head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, was arrested in 2018 and forcibly disappeared for 21 days before being brought in for investigation on charges of joining a terrorist group. She was later sentenced to five years in prison in the case known in the media as the “Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms” case.
On the final day of her sentence, she was unexpectedly “recycled” into a new case with the same charges while still in prison, before being rotated into a third case with identical accusations in November 2024. This occurred despite the serious deterioration of Hoda Abdel Moneim’s health in detention, a condition that should warrant her medical release rather than continued imprisonment.
Prior to 2013, 85 Egyptian human rights organizations faced restrictions after around 300 staff members were charged in what became known as the “foreign funding case” against civil society organizations in 2011. The case was widely seen as a form of punishment for the reports these organizations had issued before the January revolution. It included 15 foreign rights activists who were allowed to leave the country in 2012, while most Egyptian defendants remained under travel bans and asset freezes. The case was ultimately closed in January 2024 with a decision of “no grounds to proceed,” without any compensation for the defendants after 13 years of asset freezes.
Egypt may have launched its National Human Rights Strategy in 2021, but this does not mean that human rights defenders are protected from prosecution. Even routine work, such as defending a detainee or issuing a rights report, can place human rights defenders directly in the crosshairs of violations.
