On 28 December, a full year had passed since Egyptian-Turkish poet and dissident Abdel Rahman Youssef Al-Qaradawi was arrested in Lebanon in 2024, following an Emirati extradition request related to his exercise of freedom of expression.
Despite UN warnings and legal challenges, Lebanon’s cabinet decided in January 2025 to forcibly transfer him to the UAE.
Since then, Al-Qaradawi has remained in a state of enforced disappearance at an undisclosed location in the UAE. His family has been allowed only two brief visits, each no longer than ten minutes, amid reports of harsh conditions including prolonged solitary confinement and denial of basic human rights. Thirteen human rights organisations demand immediate disclosure of his whereabouts and accountability for Lebanese authorities’ violation of non-refoulement.
Ten-Year Sentences on “Terrorism” Charges for Two Children
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights condemned the Benha court’s judgment of 23 December sentencing two children to ten years in prison on terrorism-related charges over alleged online activity. Case No. 4240 of 2024 involved grave violations: the children were presented to the Supreme State Security Prosecution as adults and denied Child Law safeguards.
A prominent defendant is Mohamed Emad, an American child of Egyptian descent arrested during a summer holiday and forcibly disappeared for two weeks. EIPR stressed that charges of establishing a terrorist group are legally illogical, particularly because terrorism law requires at least three people to constitute a “group.”
Continued Case Recycling and Deaths in Detention
EIPR urged the Interior Minister to implement the 23 December 2025 release order for Ahmed Sabry Nassef, who had spent nine years detained without a single conviction. Since secondary school, he has been recycled through ten cases carrying identical charges.
Human rights organisations also demanded an urgent investigation into the death of Tarek Ashraf Mahfouz at El-Haram Police Station on 24 December. His family observed visible injuries on his body, raising fears of torture. They requested that surveillance footage be secured and examined.
Recommended reading: Medical Neglect in Egyptian Prisons: When Illness Becomes an Additional Punishment
Political and Electoral Prosecutions: From Farouk to Alaa Abdel Fattah
December saw several developments concerning political activity and security prosecutions. An appeals court upheld economist Abdel Khalek Farouk’s five-year prison sentence for publishing false news through critical articles. Meanwhile, activist Alaa Abdel Fattah’s family announced his arrival in London after his name was removed from travel ban lists.
Talaat Khalil, chair of the Civil Democratic Movement’s board of trustees, announced that he would stand trial on 28 December on charges related to parliamentary elections. Prosecutors also summoned candidate Lamis Khattab for allegedly insulting an electoral committee chair. Candidates regarded these measures as targeting their documentation of electoral violations.
In cases involving support for Palestine, State Security Prosecution referred 64 defendants to trial in two separate cases, including developer Ahmed Bahgat, being tried as a “fugitive” despite his family’s reports that he had been forcibly disappeared for nineteen months.
Writer and novelist Ammar Ali Hassan was also questioned over his writings and intellectual positions, then released on bail pending the case.
Ahmed Sabry Nassef: From Enforced Disappearance to Detention without Safeguards
Ahmed Sabry Nassef’s case renewed attention to recurring violations associated with arrest and detention in Egypt. After his arrest, he was forcibly disappeared before later appearing before investigators. His whereabouts were not officially disclosed during the disappearance, and he was not fully allowed to communicate with family or counsel.
According to EIPR and other human rights organisations, Nassef faces investigation procedures lacking minimum fair-trial guarantees. He remains in pretrial detention on vague charges without a clear referral to trial or defined detention limit.
Recommended reading: Prisoners’ Letters in Egypt: Recording Existence and Resisting Oblivion
Civil Society: From Judicial Prosecution to “Administrative Strangulation”
Despite the closure in March 2024 of Case 173 on foreign funding after thirteen years of harassment, Egyptian civil society faces a new wave of “administrative strangulation” through NGO Law No. 149 of 2019.
A Zawia3 report documented obstacles beginning with establishment. Mohamed Abdel Salam, executive director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, said activating its bank account took eleven months because of unofficial security interference. Foreign grants were then rejected without explanation despite compliance with inspections and documentation requirements, leaving the association without any activity funding since licensing.
Read the full report: From Travel Bans to “Work Bans”: How Civil Society Is Strangled by Law
Political Parties in Public Perception: From “Historic Parties” to “Election Shops”
A Zawia3 survey of one hundred people across governorates revealed an enormous gap between citizens and political parties. Ninety-seven percent said they did not trust parties, while 92% regarded them as mere “political decoration” supplementing elections. Respondents described parties as “shops” appearing seasonally to distribute food such as oil and sugar and collect votes, then disappearing once elections ended. Electoral participation has fallen sharply, reaching a historic low of 17.1% in the latest Senate elections.
Although Egypt has more than one hundred licensed parties, their actual presence remains limited and fragile: only around thirteen held seats in the House of Representatives before the 2025 elections.
Dr Amr Hashem Rabie, an Al-Ahram Centre adviser, attributes the crisis to parties’ disconnection from the public and lack of internal democracy, operating through individual leadership. He says the absolute-list electoral system, rather than proportional representation, strengthens independents and political money at the expense of programmatic party activity. More than 95% of Egyptians are thus classified politically as independents reluctant to join any party.
Read the full report: Egypt: 100 Parties, Zero Politics
Women’s Rights
Egypt’s Equality Gap: A UN Report Exposes the Illusion
The “Gender Justice and the Law” initiative, involving four UN agencies, issued an update exposing the gap between official rhetoric and Egypt’s legislation. It found 54% of legal indicators—39 of 73—negative or incomplete, particularly regarding protection from violence, family matters and health and reproductive rights.
The report criticised reliance on abstract constitutional provisions or strategies, such as the 2015 strategy, without meaningful implementation. It noted Egypt’s low global rankings on gender-gap and equal-pay indicators, reflecting resistance to substantive equality within the family.
Feminist Mobilisation against “Leniency” and Personal Status Laws
Feminist organisations launched the campaign “Justice, Not Leniency,” demanding repeal of Penal Code provisions, including Articles 17, 60 and 237, that allow reduced sentences for killing or abusing women under claims of “discipline” or “honour.” The campaign documented 29 lenient judgments in recent years.
Feminist activist Shaimaa Tantawy, co-founder of Barah Aman, said the campaign, launched by several feminist groups during the sixteen days of activism, critically analyses five Penal Code articles—7, 17, 60, 237 and 274—used to reduce sentences in cases of violence and killings against women. It produced a research paper unpacking legal interpretations that entrench violence, supported by articles and monitoring of recent lenient judgments, demonstrating the urgent need for comprehensive reform to protect women and deliver timely justice.
The Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance simultaneously launched “Open the Doors of Justice,” seeking a new personal status law to replace the outdated 1920 law. It said its proposed “A More Just Family” law remained shelved despite presidential promises in 2022 to amend the legislation.
Reproductive Health and Challenging Hate Speech
The Sawt initiative issued a fact sheet on women’s needs to strengthen health and bodily rights, seeking legal protection from female genital mutilation and forced marriage. The Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance also launched “Knowledge Protects” and announced preparation of Egypt’s first comprehensive school-oriented sexuality education curriculum.
The “Words That Hurt” campaign concluded its activities examining hate speech and discrimination against women in proverbs and jokes, urging media outlets to adopt clear policies against such discourse.
“Disciplining Society”: “Family Values” Prosecutions as Class and Gender Discrimination
A human rights report titled “Disciplining Society” documented prosecution of 327 people in 252 cases since April 2020 under the claim of “protecting family values.” It described an institutional approach using law for social control and discrimination against women and poorer people. The campaign peaked in summer 2025, when 167 people, mostly women, were arrested in fewer than four months, alongside expanded use of Cybercrime Law Article 25 and serious charges such as human trafficking and money laundering without evidence.
The report warned against vague provisions and official statements fuelling “moral panic” by publishing defendants’ information before conviction, gravely violating privacy, freedom of expression and constitutional obligations.
Recommended reading: Violence against Egypt’s Women: Missing Laws and Years of Retreat
Economic and Social Justice
Wadi El-Qamar Victory: EGP One Million Compensation against Titan
After a legal battle beginning in 2015, Alexandria’s Wadi El-Qamar resident Hany Abdel Fattah succeeded in collecting EGP one million compensation from Portland Cement Company, Titan, for health damage from coal emissions.
The victory followed the company’s exhaustion of delaying tactics and legal manoeuvres to obstruct enforcement, including claims of financial incapacity and sham recovery suits over seized movable property. EIPR described it as the culmination of a long struggle for residents’ right to a healthy environment.
Lo’lo’at Smouha: Cutting Utilities as a Tool of Forced Displacement
Residents of Alexandria’s Lo’lo’at Smouha tower face administrative escalation to remove them for a neighbouring housing project. Gas and water companies cut services last December without prior notice and in violation of the law.
Despite pending administrative court challenges to expropriation, authorities continue pressuring residents who regularly pay their bills. EIPR lawyers described cutting essential utilities as indirect coercion to leave homes in exchange for compensation residents regard as paltry.
Labour and Trade Union Rights
Arbitrary Dismissal and Privacy Violations at Oriental Weavers
Around seventy Oriental Weavers workers were arbitrarily dismissed after creating a social media group to discuss working conditions.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms documented violations surrounding dismissals, including body searches, intrusion into personal accounts, monitoring and false security complaints to incite action against workers. It urged the Labour Ministry to intervene, reinstate workers and stop practices violating labour law and ILO conventions on freedom of association.
Under the title “The New Labour Law: 42 Protests in 100 Days, and the Minimum Wage Is Ink on Paper,” a Zawia3 report documented around 42 protests between September and mid-December, based on newspaper archives and workers’ statements. Sectors ranged from sugar and water factories to furniture companies, hydropower stations and media organisations. Despite officials’ promises, many workers still earn below the legal minimum, while protests sometimes prompt management retaliation, indicating failed implementation and inadequate workplace oversight.
Read the full report: The New Labour Law: 42 Protests in 100 Days, and the Minimum Wage Is Ink on Paper
The Al-Bawaba News Crisis: A Sit-in Met with Complaints
Al-Bawaba News management responded to journalists’ sit-in, ongoing since November, with further repression, filing insult and defamation complaints against protesters and syndicate board members Eman Auf and Mahmoud Kamel.
Journalists protest low pay and failure to implement the minimum wage. Management responded by withholding November salaries, which human rights organisations described as a blatant threat to peaceful union activity and a violation of employees’ financial rights.
Veterans in the Journalists Syndicate: “Professional Execution” under Outdated Law
A Zawia3 report documented systematic exclusion affecting around 1,900 retired journalists and their beneficiaries under Journalists Syndicate Law No. 76 of 1970, particularly Article 97, described as “professional execution.” Retirement permanently transfers journalists to the non-practising register, depriving them of voting, candidacy, returning to practice and holding leadership positions even if they remain capable of contributing.
Read the full report: From the Practising Register to Oblivion: How Article 97 Confiscates Retired Journalists’ Rights
Refugees and Migrants
Systematic Deportation Campaigns against Sudanese Refugees
A joint investigation by Refugees Platform in Egypt and The New Humanitarian revealed dangerous escalation in Egyptian authorities’ campaigns to deport Sudanese refugees fleeing war. Arrests and detention extended from border regions to major cities and included refugees officially registered with UNHCR.
It reported confiscation of protection cards and pressure on detainees to sign declarations of “voluntary” departure under threat, amid UNHCR’s silence and limited role in protecting registered refugees from forced return to conflict zones.
