A year since Al-Qaradawi’s abduction and continuing restrictions
Deleted Lines | Issue 14 | December 2025
A year since Al-Qaradawi’s abduction and continuing restrictions
On 28 December, a full year passed since the arrest of the Egyptian-Turkish poet and opposition figure Abdulrahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi in Lebanon in 2024, on the basis of an Emirati extradition request linked to his right to expression.
Despite UN warnings and legal appeals, the Lebanese Council of Ministers took a decision in January 2025 to forcibly hand him over to the UAE.
Since then, Al-Qaradawi has been living in a state of ongoing enforced disappearance in an undisclosed location in the UAE, where his family has been allowed only two brief visits that did not exceed ten minutes, amid reports that he is being held in harsh conditions including prolonged solitary confinement and deprivation of the most basic human rights. 13 human rights organisations are demanding that his whereabouts be disclosed immediately and that the Lebanese authorities be held accountable for violating the principle of “non-refoulement”.
1. Personal liberty, detention and children’s rights
10-Year Sentences on “Terrorism” Charges against Two Children
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights condemned the ruling of the Benha court issued on 23 December sentencing two children to 10 years in prison on terrorism-related charges over their alleged digital activity. Case No. 4240 of 2024 involved grave violations, as the two children were brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution as adults and deprived of the guarantees of the Child Law.
The most prominent defendant in the case is the child Mohamed Emad, an American of Egyptian origin, who was arrested during a summer holiday and subjected to enforced disappearance for two weeks. The Initiative stresses that the charges of founding a terrorist group are legally illogical, especially since the Terrorism Law requires the presence of at least three persons for a “group” to be so described.
The Continuation of the “Recycling” Policy and Deaths inside Places of Detention
The Egyptian Initiative called on the Minister of Interior to implement the release decision for the young man Ahmed Sabry Nassef, issued on 23 December 2025; he has spent 9 years in detention without a single ruling convicting him, as he has been “recycled” pending 10 cases on identical charges since he was a secondary school student.
In a related context, human rights organisations called for an urgent investigation into the death of the citizen Tarek Ashraf Mahfouz inside the Haram police station on 24 December, after his family observed visible injuries on his body that raise fears that he was tortured, amid demands for the station’s surveillance camera recordings to be secured and reviewed.
Recommended reading: Medical Neglect in Egyptian Prisons: When Illness Becomes an Additional Punishment
Ahmed Sabry Nassef: From Enforced Disappearance to Detention without Guarantees
The case of the citizen Ahmed Sabry Nassef has shed light once again on a recurring pattern of violations linked to the mechanisms of arrest and detention in Egypt. After his arrest, Nassef was forcibly disappeared for a period before later appearing before the investigating authorities, without any official announcement of his place of detention during the period of disappearance, and without being fully enabled to communicate with his family or lawyer.
According to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and other human rights organisations, Nassef faces investigation procedures that lack the minimum guarantees of a fair trial, as his pretrial detention continues within the framework of vague charges, without a clear referral to trial or a time limit set on his detention.
Recommended reading: Prisoners’ Mail in Egypt: Chronicling Existence and Resisting Nothingness
2. Political participation and civil society
Political and Electoral Prosecutions: From Farouk to Alaa Abdel Fattah
December saw a series of events relating to political activity and security prosecutions. The appeals court upheld the 5-year prison sentence against the economic expert Abdel Khaleq Farouk on a charge of spreading false news over his critical articles. On the other hand, the family of the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah announced his arrival in London after his name was removed from the travel ban lists.
On the political level, Talaat Khalil, chair of the board of trustees of the Civil Democratic Movement, announced that he would appear for trial on 28 December on charges relating to the parliamentary elections, and the prosecution also summoned the candidate Lamis Khattab on a charge of insulting the head of an electoral committee, in measures that the candidates regarded as targeting them for monitoring electoral violations.
On the file of support for Palestine, the State Security Prosecution referred 64 defendants to trial in two separate cases, among them the developer Ahmed Bahgat, whom the prosecution is trying as a “fugitive” despite his family’s reports that he has been subjected to enforced disappearance for 19 months.
The writer and novelist Ammar Ali Hassan also underwent questioning over his writings and intellectual positions, and was released on financial bail pending the case.
Civil Society: From Judicial Prosecution to “Administrative Strangulation”
Despite the closure of Case 173 (foreign funding) in March 2024 after 13 years of persecution, Egyptian civil society is facing a new wave of “administrative strangulation” through the Law Regulating Civil Work (No. 149 of 2019).
In this context, a report published on the Zawia3 platform documented obstacles that begin at the founding stage, as Mohamed Abdel Salam (executive director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression) revealed that it took the association 11 months to activate its bank account because of informal security interventions, before it was surprised by the refusal of its foreign grants without reasons being given, despite its compliance with all inspection and completion procedures, which has deprived the association of any funding for its activities since it obtained its licence.
To read the full report: From Travel Bans to “Work Bans”: How Is Civil Society Being Strangled by Law?
Parties in the Popular Consciousness: From “Historic Parties” to “Electoral Shops”
An opinion poll conducted by Zawia3 covering 100 people from various governorates revealed a huge gap between the street and the political parties: 97% of participants affirmed that they do not trust the parties, and 92% considered them mere “political décor” complementing the electoral process. This crisis is manifested in the testimonies of citizens who described the current parties as “shops” that appear seasonally to distribute food commodities (oil and sugar) and harvest votes, then disappear completely as soon as the elections are over, amid a sharp decline in electoral participation, which recorded its lowest level in history at 17.1% in the last Senate elections.
Although the number of licensed parties in Egypt has passed the threshold of 100, their actual presence remains limited and fragile; before the 2025 elections, parliamentary representation in the House of Representatives did not exceed about 13 parties.
Dr Amr Hashem Rabie, adviser at the Al-Ahram Center, believes that the crisis lies in the parties’ detachment from the street and the absence of internal democracy within them, as they are run with a mentality of “individual leadership”. He pointed out that the electoral system based on the “absolute list” instead of “proportional representation” strengthens the role of independents and political money at the expense of programme-based party work, which has led most Egyptians (more than 95%) to be classified politically as independents who refrain from joining any party entity.
To read the full report: Egypt: 100 Parties, Zero Politics
3. Women’s rights and gender justice
Women's Rights
The Equality Gap in Egypt: A UN Report Exposes the Falsehood
The “Gender Justice and the Law” initiative (affiliated with four UN agencies) issued an update revealing the gap between official discourse and legislative reality in Egypt. The report showed that 54% of the legal indicators (39 indicators out of 73) were negative or incomplete, especially in the areas of protection from violence, family affairs, and health and reproductive rights.
The report criticised the state’s reliance on abstract constitutional texts or strategies (such as the 2015 strategy) without real activation, noting that Egypt ranks low globally in the indicators of the gender gap and equal pay, which reflects the state’s resistance to achieving actual equality within the institution of the family.
Feminist Mobilisation against the “Leniency” and “Personal Status” Laws
Feminist organisations launched a campaign, “Justice, Not Leniency”, calling for the repeal of articles of the Penal Code (such as Articles 17, 60 and 237) that give judges the power to reduce sentences in crimes of killing and abusing women on the pretext of “discipline” or “honour”, as the campaign recorded 29 commuted court rulings in recent years.
Shaimaa Tantawy, a feminist activist and co-founder of the “Baraah Aman” initiative, stresses that the campaign, launched by several feminist groups to coincide with the activities of the 16 Days, is based on a critical analysis of five articles of the Penal Code (7, 17, 60, 237 and 274) that are exploited to reduce sentences in cases of killing and abuse of women; the campaign has produced a research paper that dismantles the legal interpretations that entrench violence, supported by a series of articles and a monitoring of recently issued commuted court rulings, which proves the urgent need for a comprehensive legislative reform that guarantees the protection of women and achieves swift justice.
At the same time, the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance launched a campaign, “Open the Doors of Justice”, calling for a new personal status law to replace the outdated 1920 law, noting that the draft law “A More Just Family” prepared by the organisation is still shelved despite the presidential promises issued in 2022 to amend the law.
Reproductive Health and Combating Hate Speech
The “Sawt” initiative issued a fact sheet on women’s requirements for strengthening their health and bodily rights, calling for legal protection from female genital mutilation and forced marriage. The Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance also launched a campaign, “Knowledge That Protects”, and announced the preparation of the first integrated sex education curriculum in Egypt aimed at schools.
In a related context, the campaign “A Word That Hurts” concluded its activities aimed at dismantling hate speech and discrimination against women in popular proverbs and jokes, calling on the media to adopt clear policies to combat this discourse.
“Disciplining Society”: “Family Values” Prosecutions as a Tool of Class and Gender Discrimination
A human rights report entitled “Disciplining Society” documented the prosecution of 327 people in 252 cases since April 2020 on the pretext of “protecting family values”, stressing that these prosecutions have turned into an institutional approach that uses the law as a tool of social control and discrimination against women and the poor. The report recorded the peak of the campaign in summer 2025, when 167 people (most of them women) were arrested in less than four months, with expanded use of Article 25 of the Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law and aggravated charges such as “human trafficking” and “money laundering” being brought without evidence.
The report warned against the exploitation of loosely worded texts and the stoking of “moral panic” through official statements publishing the details of defendants before their conviction, which constitutes a grave violation of the right to privacy, freedom of expression and constitutional obligations.
Recommended reading: Violence against Egypt’s Women: Between the Chapters of Absent Laws and Years of Regression
4. Environmental justice and housing rights
Economic and Social Justice
Wadi El-Qamar Victory: EGP 1 Million in Compensation against the “Titan” Company
After a legal battle that began in 2015, the citizen Hany Abdel Fattah, a resident of the Wadi El-Qamar area in Alexandria, succeeded in obtaining EGP 1 million in compensation from the Portland Cement Company (Titan) for the health damage resulting from coal emissions.
This success came after the company had exhausted all means of procrastination and legal manoeuvring to obstruct the implementation of the ruling, including claiming financial inability and resorting to sham recovery lawsuits for the seized movable assets, which the Egyptian Initiative considered the crowning of a long journey of defending the rights of the area’s residents to a healthy environment.
Smouha Pearl: Cutting Utilities as a Tool of Forced Displacement
The residents of the “Smouha Pearl” tower in Alexandria are facing an administrative escalation to evict them from their homes in favour of a neighbouring housing project, as the gas and water companies cut off services to the building last December without prior notice and in violation of the law.
Despite pending appeals before the administrative judiciary against the expropriation decision, the administrative bodies continue to pressure the residents, who regularly pay for their consumption. The Egyptian Initiative’s lawyers considered that cutting off vital utilities represents “indirect coercion” of the residents to abandon their homes in exchange for compensation they describe as “paltry”.
5. Workers, journalists and trade union rights
Labour and Union Rights
Arbitrary Dismissal and Violation of Privacy at “Oriental Weavers”
About 70 workers at the “Oriental Weavers” company were arbitrarily dismissed over their creation of a group on social media to discuss their working conditions.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms documented violations that marred the dismissal process, including body searches of the workers, hacking into and monitoring their personal accounts, in addition to the use of false security reports to incite against them. The Commission called on the Ministry of Labour to intervene to reinstate the workers and halt practices that violate the Labour Law and the International Labour Organization conventions on freedom of association.
Under the title “The New Labour Law: 42 Protests in 100 Days, and the Minimum Wage “Ink on Paper””, a report published by Zawia3 documented about 42 protests during the period from September to mid-December this year, based on newspaper archives and statements issued by workers, covering various sectors, from sugar and water factories to furniture companies and water stations, as well as press institutions. Despite officials’ promises, many workers are still paid wages below the legal limit, while their protest actions sometimes face retaliatory measures by management, which points to the failure of the practical application of the law and the absence of actual oversight of workplaces.
To read the full report: The New Labour Law: 42 Protests in 100 Days, and the Minimum Wage “Ink on Paper”
The "Al-Bawaba News" Crisis: A Sit-in Met with Complaints
The management of the newspaper “Al-Bawaba News” is confronting the journalists’ sit-in, which has continued since last November, with more repression, as it has filed complaints of insult and defamation against the sit-in participants and the two members of the syndicate board, Eman Ouf and Mahmoud Kamel.
The journalists are protesting against low wages and the failure to apply the minimum wage, while the management responded by withholding the salaries for November, which human rights organisations considered a blatant threat to the right to peaceful union action and a violation of the workers’ financial rights.
Pioneers of the Profession at the Journalists Syndicate: “Professional Execution” by Outdated Legal Texts
In a related context, a report published by Zawia3 documented the suffering of about 1,900 retired journalists and their beneficiaries from a crisis of systematic exclusion caused by the Journalists Syndicate Law (No. 76 of 1970), specifically Article 97, which is described as a “professional execution”: retirement entails the journalist’s permanent transfer to the “non-practising” register, which deprives him of his fundamental rights to vote, to stand for election, and to return to practising the profession or hold leadership positions, even if he is still able to contribute.
To read the full report: From the “Practising Register” to Oblivion: How Does Article 97 Confiscate the Rights of Retirees in the Journalists Syndicate?
6. Refugee rights and protection from deportation
Refugees and Migrants
Systematic Deportation Campaigns against Sudanese Refugees
A joint investigation by the Refugees Platform in Egypt and “The New Humanitarian” revealed a serious escalation in the Egyptian authorities’ campaigns to deport Sudanese refugees fleeing the war. The investigation showed that the campaigns of stops and detention have extended from the border areas to the major cities, and have included refugees officially registered with the UN refugee agency.
The report pointed to the authorities confiscating protection cards and forcing detainees, under threat, to sign declarations that they are leaving the country “voluntarily”, amid the silence and limited role of the refugee agency in protecting those registered with it from forced deportation to conflict zones.
