Justice guarantees, freedoms and social rights in October
Justice guarantees, freedoms and social rights in October
In the twelfth issue of the Deleted Lines newsletter, we monitor developments in the rights and political landscape in Egypt during last October, as the decline in guarantees of justice and public freedoms is evident in the passing of the Criminal Procedure Law amid wide rights and political rejection, while waves of repression continue against opponents, journalists, and human rights defenders. This reflects a recurring pattern of official neglect in addressing social and legal crises, starting with the resort to customary sessions in Minya that led to forced displacement and a violation of the constitution, through the systematic arrests of nonreligious people and atheists, and the deterioration of the critical health conditions of detainees such as Hoda Abdel Moneim and Marwa Arafa, up to the escalation of violence inside schools and the deterioration of healthcare for the elderly and kidney failure patients.
1. Legislation and criminal justice guarantees
The Criminal Procedure Law
In its plenary session held on 16 October, the Egyptian House of Representatives approved by a majority of its members the new draft Criminal Procedure Law, after discussions that lasted for hours and witnessed a sharp division among MPs and a wave of objection from many parties and rights organisations, which considered that some articles of the draft represent a retreat from the guarantees of criminal justice and public freedoms.
The draft was approved after it was re-discussed following the objection of the President of the Republic to 8 articles; however, parliament merely amended the articles covered by the objection without a comprehensive review of the provisions of the law, which political and rights forces described as ignoring the substantive observations they had previously submitted in an integrated working paper to the official authorities.
Article (48), the subject of dispute, grants officers of public authority the right to enter inhabited homes and premises in cases of calls for help or danger resulting from fire or drowning “and the like”, the phrase that sparked controversy inside the chamber after MP Sana El-Saeed, of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, demanded its deletion because of the broadening of the scope of application it represents. However, the Speaker of the House, Counsellor Hanafy El-Gebaly, rejected the proposal, affirming that deleting the phrase would be considered an unconstitutional restriction, because the constitutional texts do not permit limiting the cases exhaustively.
The controversy comes in light of the text of Article (58) of the constitution, which affirms the sanctity of homes and does not permit entering or searching them except in cases of danger or calls for help, or by a reasoned judicial order specifying the place, the timing and the purpose of entry, with the necessity of notifying those in the home of the order. The dispute inside the session also intensified over Article (105) of the draft, which allows a member of the prosecution to question the accused without the presence of a lawyer in cases where there is fear of time running out, which opposition MPs and the head of the Bar Association rejected on the grounds that it violates the constitution and the guarantees of the defence. MP Diaa El-Din Dawoud asked the Speaker of the House, in his capacity as former president of the Constitutional Court, to give his opinion on the constitutionality of the text, before the MPs of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party announced their withdrawal from the session in protest at the passing of the article.
In the same context, a group of parties and rights organisations expressed, in a joint statement, their rejection of the latest amendments to the new draft Criminal Procedure Law, considering that they represent a retreat from the principles of criminal justice and the guarantees of individual freedoms. They explained that these bodies had prepared a working paper that included criticism and analysis of the draft and alternative proposals, but it was met with disregard by the House of Representatives, which passed the draft as it came from the government despite the drafting flaws and suspicions of unconstitutionality it contains. The statement indicated that the objectors felt disappointed after the draft was passed, before the President of the Republic returned it to the House because of his objection to some of its articles, considering that this was an opportunity to re-discuss the entire law; however, the House merely amended the objected articles only, in a hasty manner, which led to contradictions and a loss of legislative coherence.
The statement noted substantive observations on the amendments, most notably the unjustified postponement of the date of applying the law, allowing the questioning of the accused without the presence of a lawyer in some cases, and introducing new wording permitting the “deposit of the accused” in reform centres before questioning, amendments it described as detracting from the right to defence and constituting an unconstitutional alternative to pretrial detention. The signatories considered that the amendments weakened criminal justice and reduced the constitutional guarantees of freedoms, demanding that the President of the Republic not issue the law in its current form, and refer it to the Senate to prepare a report on it in preparation for presenting it to the next House of Representatives to review it within a framework that is more balanced and more respectful of the constitution and human rights.
Recommended reading: Criminal Procedure: A Parliament That Responds Neither to the People.. Nor to the President!
2. Citizenship, belief and protection from displacement
Minya Again: Customary Sessions Entrench Forced Displacement and the Rule of Law Is Absent
Scenes of forced displacement and collective punishment have returned to the forefront in Minya Governorate, after the sectarian events witnessed in the village of Nazlet Gelf in the Beni Mazar district, following what was rumoured about a relationship between a Coptic young man and a Muslim girl. Instead of resorting to the law, the crisis ended with the holding of an expanded customary session inside the village, run by the village mayor and a number of popular arbitrators, which resulted in decisions that violate the constitution, as described by rights organisations, most notably forcing the family of the Coptic young man to leave their homes and sell their property and imposing a large financial fine, in a scene that brought back to mind images of “collective punishment”.
The Egyptian Social Democratic Party condemned what happened, considering that resorting to customary sessions as an alternative to legal justice represents an explicit violation of the rule of law and equality before it, in addition to entrenching a culture of impunity and undermining civil peace. The party affirmed in its statement that what happened in Minya is not an isolated incident, but rather a recurring pattern in recent years, which requires an urgent investigation into the incident and the accountability of everyone who took part in imposing the displacement decisions, calling for the activation of the independent Anti-Discrimination Commission stipulated in Article (53) of the constitution as an institutional framework to address the roots of discrimination and sectarian violence in Egypt.
For her part, MP Maha Abdel Nasser describes the incident as “a serious sectarian incident that affects the fabric of national unity”, stressing in statements to “Zawia3” that the state is required to move quickly to apply the law, not to cover it up with the labels of “reconciliation” or “warding off strife”.
She adds that the continued resort to tribal customs in dealing with sectarian crises reflects the absence of the will to confront the cultural and social causes that fuel such incidents, demanding that parliament speed up the discussion of the draft law on the Anti-Discrimination Commission, which she submitted years ago and which has not been discussed until now.
As for researcher Ishak Ibrahim, a specialist in freedom of religion and belief at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, he considered what happened in Nazlet Gelf “a return to tribalism and a flagrant challenge to the constitution”, noting in a post on his (Facebook) page that the decisions of the customary session represent a collective punishment that has nothing to do with the law, after the Coptic family was forced to leave and pay a fine of EGP 1 million, while the committee ignored the incidents of assault and intimidation against Copts. He added that such treatments do not end the crisis but lay the foundation for new rounds of tension, demanding a firm institutional intervention that restores the standing of the rule of law and prevents villages from turning into arenas for administering justice by customs rather than by laws.
For its part, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights condemned the way state agencies dealt with the events. The Initiative said that this pattern of “customary settlements” represents a dangerous return to the culture of collective punishment and a flagrant transgression of the constitution, especially given the presence and sponsorship of security officials of that session. It added that its documentation extending over two decades has shown that such sessions protect perpetrators and entrench discrimination against Copts, as pre-prepared decisions are often imposed in them that acquit the aggressor and punish the victim.
It explained that the decisions of the Nazlet Gelf session, including forced displacement and collective fines, represent an explicit violation of Articles (53) and (63) of the constitution, which prohibit discrimination and forced displacement. The Initiative affirmed that the state is responsible for ending its sponsorship of these illegal mechanisms, applying the law to everyone without discrimination, and guaranteeing the protection of women and girls who, in such incidents, are turned into tools of sectarian conflict, demanding the opening of an immediate investigation into the circumstances of the incident and the accountability of those involved in imposing or implementing customary decisions that violate citizens’ constitutional rights.
The Egyptian Initiative Condemns the Campaign of Arrests Against Nonreligious People
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights condemned the campaign of arrests waged by the security agencies against nonreligious people, atheists and others holding different religious views, which began in mid-September and continued during the month of October, considering that it represents a violation of the constitutional obligations that guarantee freedom of religion and belief and of opinion and expression, and of the government’s commitments contained in the National Human Rights Strategy and in the official reports submitted to the United Nations and development partners.
The Initiative said in its statement that its rights team documented during the past few weeks the arrest of at least 14 people believed to adopt ideas different from the prevailing religious beliefs, against the backdrop of their exercising their constitutional right to express their opinions and intellectual questions on social media.
The statement added that a number of those arrested were subjected to enforced disappearance for several days before appearing before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which took over their questioning and charged them with joining a group founded in violation of the provisions of the constitution and the law and publicly insulting one of the religions whose rites are performed, then ordered their detention pending Case No. 6954 of 2025 Supreme State Security.
3. Prisoners of conscience, press freedom and human rights defenders
Rights Organisations Demand the Release of Hoda Abdel Moneim After Seven Years of Detention
Cairo – 2 November 2025
The “Freedom for Hoda Abdel Moneim” campaign and a number of rights organisations, along with her family, demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the lawyer and prominent human rights defender Hoda Abdel Moneim, who today completes seven consecutive years behind bars since her arrest in November 2018, despite the deterioration of her health and her suffering from chronic illnesses that threaten her life.
In a new appeal to the President of the Republic, Jihad Khaled, the daughter of Hoda Abdel Moneim and a former member of the National Council for Human Rights, appealed to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to intervene to release her mother through a health pardon or by including her in a presidential pardon, given the deterioration of her health in her place of detention. She said in a letter, a copy of which Zawia3 obtained, that she submits “a humanitarian petition to the President of the Republic to consider the case of her mother, who is going through extremely critical health conditions”, noting that she is 66 years old and suffers from serious illnesses, including recurrent heart attacks and a sharp deterioration in kidney function that threatens her life.
She added that her mother completed her five-year prison sentence on 31 October 2023, which was on the basis of the charge of joining the Muslim Brotherhood, “and despite that, her detention continued pending two new cases on the same charges, in violation of the principles of justice and multiplying the family’s suffering”. She explained that her mother suffered two successive heart attacks on 23 and 30 August, and suffered clots in the lung and deep veins, in addition to the deterioration of kidney function and her approaching kidney failure, affirming that her continued detention “constitutes an immediate danger to her life and may lead, God forbid, to irreversible consequences”.
In the rights statement, the organisations said that the Egyptian authorities continue to detain Abdel Moneim arbitrarily “in flagrant violation of the law, the constitution and international standards”, demanding her immediate release and guaranteeing her access to the necessary medical care.
Security forces had raided Abdel Moneim’s home in Cairo at dawn on 1 November 2018 without a judicial warrant, and forcibly detained her for 21 days before she was brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which charged her with “joining a terrorist group” and “spreading false news” on the basis of her rights work. Her pretrial detention continued for more than five years, before the Emergency State Security Court issued on 5 March 2023 a ruling sentencing her to five years in prison after a trial that the organisations said “lacks the standards of justice and fairness”.
Despite the end of the sentence in October 2023, she was not released; rather, she was retried in two new cases on the same charges, which the organisations considered “a violation of the principle that a person may not be tried twice for the same act”.
The statement indicated that Abdel Moneim’s health has seriously deteriorated inside prison, as she suffers from chronic clots in the deep veins and lungs, and a deterioration in kidney function that led to the left kidney stopping working, in addition to recurrent heart attacks and severe joint pain requiring urgent surgical intervention. Last August, she suffered two successive heart attacks within a single week, which indicates “an imminent danger to her life given her continued detention and deprivation of specialised medical care”.
The statement addressed the international support for her case, noting that the United Nations Special Procedures, in an official communication dated 17 February 2022, expressed their concern about her continued arbitrary detention and the use of counter-terrorism legislation to criminalise her rights work, demanding her immediate release. The High Commissioner for Human Rights also renewed in January 2025 its criticism of the use of the Anti-Terrorism Law in Egypt to suppress independent voices and defenders of fundamental rights.
In the same context, the statement indicated that the Belgian Federal Parliament addressed her case in its statement on human rights in Egypt in 2023, while the European Parliament, in its draft resolution issued on 16 December 2024, expressed its “deep concern over the escalating repression against lawyer and human rights defender Hoda Abdel Moneim”, calling for her immediate release and guaranteeing her physical and psychological safety.
The organisations believe that Abdel Moneim’s case represents part of a wider pattern of targeting human rights defenders, men and women, in Egypt, calling on the authorities to “end her suffering and ensure respect for their international obligations”.
The statement concluded by recalling that Hoda Abdel Moneim, who is a lawyer and former member of the National Council for Human Rights, is a recipient of the 2020 Human Rights Award of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, and was known for defending victims of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention. The statement affirmed that her case is “a symbol of the suffering of defenders of rights and freedoms in Egypt”, and called for continued rights and international pressure to ensure her release and to put an end to the use of the exceptional judiciary against independent voices.
The case, according to the organisations and her family, has become a test of the extent of the Egyptian state’s commitment to its legal and humanitarian responsibilities, at a time when local and international calls are growing to save the life of the lawyer who has been detained for seven years.
Recommended reading: After Two Heart Attacks and Kidney Failure, Hoda Abdel Moneim’s Family Appeals to the President to Pardon Her
An Urgent Request to Save the Life of Marwa Arafa
In a related context, the Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders and the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance submitted an urgent request to the National Council for Human Rights to intervene immediately to save the life of researcher Marwa Arafa, who has been detained since 2018 in the Tenth of Ramadan Prison, pending Case No. 570 of 2020 Supreme State Security. The statement indicated that Arafa appeared during the session of 18 October 2025 in a state of severe exhaustion and difficulty breathing, and informed the judge of a suspected pulmonary embolism, which raised grave concern about her safety and her urgent need for medical care.
In the same context, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called on the National Council for Human Rights to move urgently to follow up on Marwa Arafa’s case, affirming that her continued detention for more than five years constitutes a flagrant violation of the constitution and the law and an undermining of fair trial guarantees. The Initiative explained that last August Arafa suffered a health setback suspected to be a clot in the pulmonary artery, which led to the deterioration of her condition and difficulty moving, amid the prison administration’s disregard of her family’s and lawyers’ demands to transfer her to an equipped hospital or to the Badr medical complex.
Journalist Safaa El-Korbagy Detained Pending Investigations
Likewise, Egyptian security forces arrested journalist Safaa El-Korbagy for the second time on 6 October, and on 13 October the Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered her pretrial detention for 15 days pending investigation in Case No. 7256 of 2025, based on posts she published on Facebook, most notably a post about the Ageeba chalets crisis in Marsa Matrouh, according to what was announced by the rapporteur of the Freedoms Committee at the Journalists Syndicate, Iman Ouf. The Journalists Syndicate demanded her immediate release, taking into account her health and psychological condition. El-Korbagy had previously been arrested in April 2022 on the same charges before being released, and she had previously been dismissed from Radio and Television magazine in January 2021.
Dozens of Defendants Accused of Solidarity with Palestine Released in October
The Public Prosecution released during October 38 citizens, including 18 detained pending cases related to solidarity with Palestine, according to lawyer Khaled Ali. The decision included the young people participating in the Egyptian Sumud Flotilla to break the siege on Gaza, on bail of EGP 1,000 each, after handing over the aid to the Egyptian Red Crescent.
In a related context, police sergeant Abdel Gawad Mohamed Abdel Gawad was released after more than a year and a half of pretrial detention over raising the Palestinian flag. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights explained that this step is positive for halting pretrial detention violations, but stressed expanding the scope of release to include cases open for years, such as the case of journalist Nermeen Hussein, who is still detained despite the passage of more than four years without sufficient evidence.
Egyptian Researcher and Academic Taqadum El-Khatib Referred to Trial in Absentia
The Egyptian authorities referred the Germany-based researcher and academic Taqadum El-Khatib to criminal trial in absentia in Case No. 29 of 2025, along with 168 other defendants, including journalists and human rights defenders, most prominently photojournalist Hamdy El-Zaeem. The terrorism court in Badr will hold the next session on 30 December to hear witnesses.
According to rights organisations, the charges against El-Khatib, including “joining a terrorist group” and “participating in a criminal agreement”, are politically motivated as part of an escalating pattern of transnational repression against opponents residing abroad. It is worth noting that El-Khatib, who holds a joint doctorate from the Free University of Berlin and Princeton University, has been subjected since 2017 to harassment that included his dismissal from Damietta University and the deprivation of his academic rights because of his documentation of the “Tiran and Sanafir” case, which rights organisations considered a violation of his right to identity and nationality.
Rights Criticism of the Prison Sentence Against Abdel Khaliq Farouk and Demands to Release Refaa El-Tahtawi
Rights organisations condemned the ruling issued by an Egyptian misdemeanours court on 2 October sentencing economist Abdel Khaliq Farouk to five years in prison on the charge of spreading false news, considering that it was issued after a trial marred by legal and procedural violations, and came in response to critical articles that addressed economic policies in Egypt.
Farouk had been arrested in October 2024 and initially faced charges related to belonging to a terrorist group and financing it, before these charges were dropped and his case was referred to the misdemeanours court. The organisations pointed out that the conditions of his detention were inhumane, and demanded his immediate release and the guarantee of his right to a fair trial, considering the ruling an assault on freedom of opinion and expression.
In a related context, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights demanded the immediate release of former ambassador Mohamed Refaa El-Tahtawi (75 years old), who has been detained for more than two years pending Case No. 1097 of 2022 before the Criminal Court at the Badr Security Complex. The Initiative pointed out that El-Tahtawi suffers from poor detention conditions, deprived of visits and of communication with his family or his defence team for more than seven years, which constitutes a violation of the law and of the minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.
The Initiative explained that over twelve years El-Tahtawi was subjected to four different cases, and completed all his sentences, totalling ten years, in 2023, but he is still in pretrial detention in a new case on the charge of joining a terrorist group and financing it, despite being deprived of any communication with the outside world.
Recommended reading: Conflicting Signals: Between the Pardon of Alaa Abdel Fattah and the Imprisonment of Ismail Alexandrani
El Nadeem Center: 57 Cases of State Violence and 10 Killings in October
El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture issued its monthly report titled “The Harvest of Oppression in October 2025”, in which it monitored dozens of cases of killing, violence, torture and enforced disappearance inside and outside places of detention.
According to the statistical table issued by the center, the report documented 57 cases of violence by the state, 10 killings, in addition to 4 deaths inside places of detention. It also recorded 9 cases of individual torture and 60 cases of individual harassment, in addition to 16 cases of collective harassment inside prisons and detention facilities.
The report pointed to the continuation of the phenomenon of deliberate medical negligence against prisoners and detainees, as the center documented 21 cases during the same month, amid the absence of basic healthcare and the refusal to transfer patients to hospitals despite the seriousness of their conditions.
El Nadeem Center also documented 50 new cases of enforced disappearance, and 37 cases of reappearance after disappearance. The October report comes as an extension of the “Harvest of Oppression” series that El Nadeem Center has issued monthly for years, to document the patterns of violations inflicted on individuals by state authorities, whether in prisons, police stations or during security raids.
4. Children’s rights and safety in education
An Alarming Escalation of Violence Inside Egyptian Schools
The Egyptians Without Borders for Development Foundation monitored an alarming escalation in incidents of violence and educational crises inside Egyptian schools since the start of the new school year in September 2025, as the first days witnessed a series of serious incidents including assaults on teachers, sexual harassment, fights between students, and pupils running away from schools, which raised questions about the feasibility of education development policies and the application of the school discipline regulations.
According to the report, seven incidents of physical assault on teachers were documented in different governorates, as well as cases of sexual harassment within the educational environment, in addition to phenomena that threaten students’ safety such as the collapse of school facilities, the absence of safe means of transport, and the spread of non-educational behaviour by members of the “school police”.
The report revealed that the period between July and September 2025 witnessed 51 incidents of violence within the school environment, 34 of them in September alone, divided between assaults on teachers at a rate of 69% and violence against students at a rate of 31%, and the governorates of Giza, Qalyubia and Cairo topped the list of governorates recording the most such incidents.
5. Health and older people’s rights
Medicine Shortages and the Deterioration of the Automated System Aggravate the Suffering of Kidney Failure Patients
Kidney failure patients in Egypt suffer from intertwined crises including shortages of vital medicines, high treatment costs, and problems in the application of the new automated system for dialysis. The most prominent missing medicine is “erythropoietin”, used to treat anaemia, which forces patients to resort to blood transfusions, a procedure fraught with risks and financially costly. Other necessary medicines have also disappeared, such as “Bicom” and “L-carnitine”, which drives patients to exchange medicines or buy them at high prices.
Patients’ testimonies, documented by Zawia3 in a report titled “ Kidney Failure Patients in Egypt: A Double Tragedy Between Medicine Shortages and the Collapse of Care “, indicate that the application of the automated system caused additional problems, such as the installation of unsuitable or locally made filters, while their suffering is aggravated by the halt in the payment of the transport allowance that had been granted by a court ruling, and the rising costs of transport and sessions, which may reach EGP 900. Patients demand the inclusion of kidney failure in the integrated services card and the “Takaful and Karama” pension, as a disease that causes disability.
Dr Hamed Ezzat El-Iraqi, a consultant in nephrology and internal medicine, explains to “Zawia3” that kidney failure patients suffer from a recurrent shortage of the drug “erythropoietin”, used to treat anaemia, which forces them to resort to blood transfusions despite their health risks, high cost and the difficulty of providing the appropriate blood types, stressing that the shortage is linked to the imported raw material, and not to the brand, despite the limited number of available products such as “Epotin”, “Epiao”, and “Recormon”.
He adds that the market is also witnessing a shortage of some supporting medicines such as vitamin B complex and “L-carnitine”, in addition to sevelamer, a drug for lowering phosphorus in the blood, which has been removed from health insurance coverage, increasing the financial burden on patients.
To read the text of the report and the details: Medicine Shortages Double the Suffering of Cancer and Kidney Failure Patients
Parliamentary Questions over the Delay in Issuing the Executive Regulations of the Law on the Rights of the Elderly
Suez Governorate recently witnessed a shocking incident of assault on an elderly man, which sparked a wide wave of anger on social media after the spread of a video showing a young man violently assaulting an elderly man unable to defend himself.
After the video circulated, the security services at the Suez Security Directorate were able to identify the accused and arrest him, and the investigations showed that a dispute over renting a residential apartment was behind the incident, as the discussion between the two parties developed into a verbal altercation that ended in a physical assault on the elderly man.
In a parliamentary move following the incident of the assault on an elderly man in Suez Governorate, Freddy El-Bayadi, a member of the House of Representatives and deputy head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, submitted last Saturday an urgent briefing request addressed to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Social Solidarity, concerning the government’s delay in issuing the executive regulations of the Law on the Rights of the Elderly No. (10) of 2022, despite more than two years having passed since its issuance.
The MP explained that the law was issued on 6 March 2022 and published in the Official Gazette, and stipulated that its executive regulations be issued within six months of the date of its entry into force; however, the government has not complied with that until now, which has disrupted its application and left the elderly without the protection that the legislator granted them, noting that parliament had played its role by passing the law, which aims to safeguard the dignity of the elderly and provide them with health, social and psychological care, and to toughen the penalties on those who assault them, but the government, according to him, “deals with the file without seriousness, amid a clear absence of executive and political will”.
The Egyptian House of Representatives finished drafting the Law on the Care of the Rights of the Elderly No. 19 of 2024 on 4 April of last year, and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, ratified it at the time, and the law received wide praise from a number of rights advocates, as it achieves unprecedented gains in the file of the elderly, which would provide social, economic, health and psychological rights to this group; as the law primarily aims to protect and care for the elderly (every Egyptian man or woman who has reached 65 years of age), and to guarantee their comprehensive rights to ensure a dignified and safe life for them, and its provisions also include foreigners residing in Egypt, on condition of reciprocity.
El-Bayadi tells Zawia3 that “the regulations were supposed to be issued within six months of the law’s passing. The law’s importance lies in the fact that it grants many rights and privileges to the elderly, and it is the least that can be offered to them in terms of rights; it is an honouring of the elderly who served the nation, and good privileges were set in the law, but without executive regulations, the law remains mere ink on paper, as if nothing had happened”, considering that the recent incident of the “Suez elderly man” highlights the seriousness of this delay, and asking: “What is the point of issuing laws if they remain ink on paper? And does the dignity of the elderly not deserve swift implementation and accountability from the government?”
Recommended reading: Protection or Restrictions? Wide Criticism of Egypt’s New Asylum Law
6. Housing, the city and the environment
Nazlet El-Semman Residents: The Development of the Pyramids Passes over Our Heads
A state of anxiety prevails among the residents of Nazlet El-Semman after the circulation of a new map indicating the implementation of demolitions over an area of nearly 4819 square metres as part of the third phase of the development project, despite previous official promises to limit the work to restoring existing houses. The demolitions include 54 plots of land classified as “imminent danger” and other plots located within the expansion of the ascending road of the Pyramid of Khufu.
The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, in cooperation with the Defa Center and lawyer Khaled Ali, filed lawsuits to halt the demolition and temporary seizure decisions, and to demand the holding of a community dialogue about the project. Khaled El-Gamal, a lawyer at the Center, affirms that the demolitions target about a third of the area of Nazlet El-Semman even though the new entrance to the Pyramids has already been developed, warning that the step threatens the stability of the residents and their sources of livelihood, especially since the proposed compensation is not commensurate with the real value of the properties, while the case is still being heard before the judiciary without an official demolition decision having been issued so far.
Recommended reading: Nazlet El-Semman Residents: The Development of the Pyramids Passes over Our Heads
Environmental Concerns over the Green Cover in Alexandria
Alexandria residents expressed their concern after the removal of a number of palm trees on Abu Qir Street, preceded by similar works in Roushdy, amid environmental and aesthetic fears about the future of the green cover in the city, especially with Alexandria’s selection as Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue for 2025. Civil society organisations affirmed the importance of preserving old trees and safeguarding the city’s visual identity, and demanded the involvement of experts and civil society in alternative afforestation plans, and guaranteeing residents’ right to safe mobility and the planting of local shade trees that compensate for the environmental loss.
In a study issued by the Wal-Madina Foundation for Human and Social Research, it pointed to disparities in services and infrastructure among the city’s neighbourhoods, the decline of the green cover, and the shrinking of Lake Mariout, with the escalation of phenomena such as seawater inundation and heat islands, and the conversion of public spaces into closed projects. The study called for adopting standards of environmental justice in urban planning, guaranteeing access for all residents to green spaces and beaches, developing sustainable means of transport, along with activating community participation and academic expertise in the implementation of urban plans.
7. Women’s rights, solidarity and protection from violence
Feminist and Rights Solidarity in the Face of Repression and Violence
35 civil society organisations expressed their solidarity with three of the most prominent Palestinian human rights organisations after the US sanctions imposed on them, namely Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and described the sanctions as a new link in a chain of attempts to silence independent Palestinian voices, and a direct targeting of the rights movement that documents the occupation’s violations and seeks to hold their perpetrators accountable.
In the same context, the New Woman Foundation expressed its solidarity with the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women after the Tunisian authorities’ decision to suspend its activity for a month, considering that a continuation of the policies of restricting public space and targeting the independent feminist movement, which faces systematic attempts at criminalisation and restriction.
In another context, the New Woman Foundation criticised the Public Prosecution’s pleading in the case of “Suzy El-Ordonia”, which exceeded its legal role to impose moral and social guardianship over women, using loose legal texts, most notably Article 25 of the Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law, to criminalise unconventional behaviour online. The foundation pointed out that the pleading aimed at controlling women’s bodies and their financial behaviour, which reflects the dominance of patriarchal culture over the justice system in Egypt, and turns the law into a tool for entrenching patriarchal authority and control over women and the most vulnerable groups.
Rights Condemnations of the Ruling in the Case of the Child Faten Zaki: Incomplete Justice and a Complicit Law
19 rights organisations and a political party condemned the ruling issued by the Tanta Court of Appeal sentencing the killer of the child Faten Zaki to seven years in prison, and considered that the ruling represents a continuation of the reduction of punishment for perpetrators of violence against women, and reflects the shortcomings of the judicial system in protecting women and girls. The statement affirmed that laws such as Article 17 and Article 60 of the Penal Code contribute to perpetrators’ impunity, especially in cases of domestic violence and gender-based killing, calling for these texts to be amended and for comprehensive protection mechanisms for women against violence to be activated.
For its part, the “Bint El-Nil” Foundation issued a statistical report showing that the killing of minors in Egypt differs according to sex, as it was observed that males are often killed for economic reasons or family and revenge disputes, while female minors are targeted with sexual and financial violence, which reflects that girls’ bodies are considered an object of violation and control, while males are seen as tools within economic and social conflicts. The foundation affirmed that these patterns reflect the continuation of structural discrimination and systematic violence against women and girls within Egyptian society.
