Egypt has undergone major political changes since the events of 30 June and the removal of the late president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Political participation, trade-union organisation, journalism and broadcasting have all been affected by the reshaping of civic space.
Rights reports since 2013 describe a marked deterioration in expression and media freedom alongside increased security targeting of digital-content creators. Accusations such as joining terrorist groups and spreading false news have been brought against citizens, journalists and activists over peaceful opinions and public-interest reporting.
Over the twelve years examined, rights organisations describe growing use of pretrial detention and recycling detainees into new cases. Official prisoner totals remain unavailable despite repeated requests. Amnesty International has characterised the repression as more severe than during Hosni Mubarak’s rule and described Egypt as an open prison for critics.
Amnesty International’s assessment.
Civic space and its contraction
The United Nations describes civic space as the environment enabling civil society to participate meaningfully in political, economic and social life. It allows people to access information, shape policies, debate, dissent and organise collectively. Open, pluralistic space protecting expression, peaceful assembly and association is essential to sustainable development and lasting peace.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights emphasises the ability to exercise those rights and participate in public affairs without fear of retaliation, enabling accountability and influence over public policy.
In “Years of Siege: Civic Space in Egypt, 2013–2025”, HuMENA defines it as the framework enabling individuals and groups, at home or in exile, to organise, express themselves and hold power accountable. It is more than a physical or legal space: it is a system of guarantees allowing society to influence, monitor and participate in decisions.
HuMENA says civic space encompasses the structures and mechanisms enabling safe, pluralistic interaction between civil actors, government and society. It measures respect for human rights and the balance between authorities and citizens. Defending it against restrictive laws, security measures and smear campaigns protects public engagement, dignity and democratic possibilities.
HuMENA executive director Mostafa Fouad tells Zawia3 that contraction between 3 July 2013 and 31 December 2025 was gradual, resulting from accumulated decisions and policies. Restrictions on participation became the rule rather than the exception.
It began by redefining prohibited conduct in legislation, followed by lengthy judicial processes that deterred and exhausted participants. Administrative procedures then imposed everyday constraints on organisation and sustained participation.
Blocking, prosecution and surveillance extended those constraints online, affecting expression, private communications and information security. Fouad says the cost of public participation rose sharply, making civic engagement exhausting and risky.
From the Constitution to laws: codifying restrictions
After Morsi’s removal on 3 July 2013, the authorities comprehensively reshaped public-space rules. While Emergency Law No. 162 of 1958 had long been a principal instrument of exceptional rule, the post-2013 period built a broader, permanent legislative system justified as regulation of public life. In the rights organisations’ analysis, exception became embedded as the norm.
HuMENA’s paper recognises gains in the 2014 Constitution: association by notification, equality, an anti-discrimination commission, expression protections and safeguards against press censorship. It also highlights criticism of the drafting committee’s refusal to prohibit military trials of civilians, which defenders considered incompatible with fair-trial guarantees.
The paper links President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s description of the Constitution as written with good intentions to the subsequent 2019 amendments, which it argues weakened judicial independence. Separately, Law No. 13 of 2017 changed judicial leadership appointments before those amendments. The two measures belong to successive stages; the 2017 law did not follow the 2019 amendments.
The paper describes a process of legalising repression beginning with Protest Law No. 107 of 2013. It argues that broad restrictions and security powers to disperse or oppose demonstrations turned the constitutional right to peaceful assembly into a practical prohibition and encouraged pre-emptive deterrence.
It also describes the militarisation of judicial procedures through 2020 emergency-law amendments granting armed-forces personnel enforcement powers, and criticises the new criminal-procedure legislation adopted in 2025 as undermining the rule of law.
A separate Egyptian Human Rights Forum paper analysing post-30 June legislative policy argues that the legal framework was strategically restructured to legitimise restrictive practices and rights violations while strengthening impunity.
The Egyptian Forum’s legislative-policy paper.
Fouad says legislation systematically narrowed the principal channels of civic activity: peaceful assembly, expression and media, digital participation and civil-society organisation.
Beyond the risks created by the Protest Law, he cites Anti-Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018 as strengthening surveillance and data collection and enabling website blocking under broad national-security grounds. Restrictions on independent media reduced pluralism and access to information.
For organisations, Associations Laws No. 70 of 2017 and No. 149 of 2019 entrenched registration, funding and activity controls, Fouad says. Operational capacity became dependent on repeated administrative and security approvals.
Peaceful organisation, criticism and protest consequently carry accumulated legal and security costs, encouraging withdrawal and self-censorship. Fouad argues that sustainable political or economic stability requires safe space for accountability, clear predictable law and organisation. Reform consistent with constitutional and international standards is essential to trust and durable growth.
Engineering legislation
From 3 July 2013 until early 2016, parliament was absent from legislative life. Constitutional provisions for necessity enabled presidential decrees with force of law without parliamentary scrutiny, the Egyptian Forum’s paper documents.
Those exceptional powers produced major laws, including protest and counterterrorism legislation, that reshaped public life restrictively. The paper argues that legislation moved from guaranteeing rights to formally codifying restrictions.
HuMENA says the return of parliament did not restore meaningful oversight. It describes executive and security control over the 2016 and 2021 elections through closed lists, obstruction of opposition candidates and detention of political organisers seeking electoral alliances, producing predominantly pro-executive legislatures.
The paper highlights mass ratification and rapid passage as recurring legislative patterns. In January 2016, parliament approved approximately 341 laws within fifteen days, most previously issued by presidential decree. HuMENA argues that meaningful review was absent and that subsequent laws similarly proceeded without effective public dialogue or attention to professional, rights-group and UN objections.
The Egyptian Forum recorded 1,695 laws from 2013 to publication of its paper in August 2024. It criticises parliament for ratifying defective legislation and proposing constitutional changes weakening rotation of power and judicial independence.
The latest parliamentary elections again produced a legislature dominated by pro-government parties. The National List for Egypt was the only list contesting its seats. Mostaqbal Watan secured 227 seats, Homeland Defenders 86, the new National Front 65 and the Republican People’s Party 25, according to the figures cited in the report.
Zawia3’s report on the new parliament.
Egyptian Human Rights Forum executive director Samar al-Husseini argues that the goal goes beyond legalising repression to rebuilding the state’s constitutional and legislative foundations around executive dominance closely linked to the military.
In that model, apparently free spaces remain under security control and can be closed at any moment without effective legal or institutional safeguards, she tells Zawia3.
She contrasts this with earlier periods, particularly before 2011, when constitutional law offered a genuine arena in which freedoms could be secured or executive power restrained. The Supreme Constitutional Court issued significant judgments on expression, torture and international commitments. She argues that the subsequent governing doctrine sought to close those legal openings and prevent institutions challenging security and military power.
Al-Husseini believes authorities view an open public sphere as a cause of the 25 January Revolution and near-total closure as protection against recurrence. She counters that stability depends on participation, accountability, balanced powers and protected rights, rather than removing politics from public life.
Reshaping journalism through law and ownership
Since 2013, dozens of journalists have been imprisoned in a period Reporters Without Borders describes as making Egypt one of the world’s largest prisons for journalists.
HuMENA argues that declining press freedom reflects an integrated legislative system rather than isolated security incidents.
It highlights Penal Code Articles 80(d), 102 bis and 188 concerning false news. In its assessment, broad wording and discretion over bad intent allow critical political or journalistic material to be treated as criminal.
Together with counterterrorism and cybercrime laws, these provisions have expanded prosecution over content and professional or digital activity, producing fear and discouraging independent journalism, the paper argues.
The Committee to Protect Journalists counted eighteen imprisoned journalists in its 2024 census, placing Egypt among the ten largest jailers. HuMENA also documented blocking of 600 journalistic and rights websites and 261 VPN tools or providers. These are figures for the periods covered by those sources.
Media ownership also changed fundamentally after 2013. A landscape of state media, privately owned business outlets and limited party newspapers gave way to acquisitions transferring major channels, newspapers and websites to security-linked companies or businesspeople close to the authorities, the paper says.
It describes Egyptian Media Group as owned through Eagle Capital and linked to General Intelligence. Acquisitions included ON TV channels, a large CBC stake, Nile Radio and digital outlets, alongside interests in film and television production, advertising, marketing and sport.
The paper also identifies businessman Tarek Ismail’s Media D, which it describes as close to military intelligence, with interests including DMC, Radio 9090 and the religious Al-Nas channel. Other outlets have ownership structures not clearly disclosed and histories involving security-service businesses and connected investors.
HuMENA argues that concentration of ownership accompanied tighter control of artistic and cultural production. Works addressing corruption or security abuses declined while productions presenting state institutions as respectful of law and the Constitution gained prominence.
Mohamed Abdel Salam, executive director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, says ownership is central to understanding both media freedom and journalists’ professional conditions.
He describes decades of state dominance through radio and television, administered successively under national-guidance and information ministries, with limited party newspapers during the Sadat and Mubarak eras.
Private ownership expanded during Mubarak’s final decade through satellite channels, private newspapers and websites launched relatively easily by young journalists or modestly resourced investors. The 25 January Revolution brought further growth and diversity.
After 2013, Abdel Salam says major business owners were pressured to relinquish television networks. Full transaction details, including whether payments were substantive or nominal, remain unclear. New financial, legal and licensing barriers made launching channels and websites far harder and weakened stable lawful opportunities for journalists.
He argues that legislation or security action alone could not have controlled the media so extensively. Ownership transfer to state bodies was an essential part of the restrictive system.
Everyone under observation
Restrictions have also extended to digital life through investment in surveillance and spyware. Digital monitoring can track calls, email, messaging and browsing to gather and analyse users’ activities.
HuMENA documents Interior Ministry procurement of private-sector monitoring equipment and software for public and private online communication. It describes a French surveillance system obtained with UAE support and targeting of opponents inside and outside Egypt, including Ahmed al-Tantawi’s phone during preparations for a presidential run.
Citizen Lab’s investigation of al-Tantawi’s targeting.
The paper also examines prosecution monitoring of media and social platforms following instructions issued by former Prosecutor General Nabil Sadeq in May 2018. Terms concerning public-security disruption, harm to public interests and spreading fear, it argues, widen oversight across online activity.
A Supreme Council for Media Regulation committee monitoring social pages and changing ideas among social groups is described as another part of this broader control system.
AFTE’s paper on digital transformation in the Public Prosecution says prosecutors have moved beyond receiving complaints to proactively monitoring and investigating suspected offences, including preliminary inquiries traditionally associated with police.
It argues that the monitoring and analysis unit affects privacy and expression and raises separation-of-powers concerns when prosecutors undertake policing functions through broad, collective surveillance rather than defined cases and safeguards.
AFTE’s paper on prosecution monitoring.
Over twelve years, restrictive legislation, security practices, ownership changes and digital monitoring have combined to reshape participation as a conditional privilege rather than an inherent right.
The resulting legal and institutional structure has weakened trust in public action and spread fear and self-censorship. The question left by this account is whether an opening remains.
