In Issue 22 of the “Deleted Lines” bulletin, we document a multifaceted picture of rights and freedoms in Egypt during August 2026, where restrictions on expression and privacy intersect with the use of force and detention, and their repercussions are felt across files concerning religious minorities, journalists, dissidents and their families, alongside continuing challenges related to the right to work, housing, property, and access to justice.
This edition stops at 573 people killed in security operations over 18 months, the biometric data file and its link to telecommunications services, the situations of detainees, rights defenders, and journalists, and the ongoing dispute over Warraq Island. We also follow economic and social rights cases, from transport accidents that killed 30 workers in six days, to expropriation, ration card exclusions, and the crisis affecting Egyptians’ residency in the UAE. We devote space to the women’s file, covering domestic violence and the precariousness of women’s labor, the case of human rights lawyer Hoda Abd El-Moneim, and the legal dispute over the Zahriya Garden.
Rights and Freedoms: Expanding Restrictions and Intensifying Prosecutions
The rights and freedoms file during August witnessed varied developments and events, foremost among them the expansion of digital surveillance tools, the prosecution of individuals for expression or belief, and the continued debate around detention and the use of force by security services, alongside challenges in the enforcement of workers’ rights and access to justice.
At the forefront of these files, 19 rights organizations demanded that the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) reverse any directives making the submission of biometric data, such as facial images or fingerprints, a condition for registering, managing, or recovering mobile phone lines, or for using the “Arqami” service, or for contesting lines registered under people’s names without their knowledge.
The demands came after the Authority announced on August 10 the referral of all four telecom companies operating in Egypt to the Public Prosecution, following investigations into the registration of phone lines, and in some cases financial wallets linked to them, using personal data without the knowledge of their owners.
The Authority directed the companies to accelerate the availability of mechanisms for verifying line owners’ identities using biometrics through their digital applications, which raised rights concerns about converting a problem related to tightening line registration procedures into a new obligation imposed on millions of users.
The organizations argue that the Authority has not yet clarified the source of the failure, the number of unauthorized registration cases confirmed by the investigations, or whether they resulted from identity fraud at points of sale, misuse of employee and agent powers, or manipulation of activation systems and companies’ internal records.
These concerns carry particular significance given that Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020 classifies biometric data as sensitive personal data, imposing stricter requirements on its collection, processing, and protection.
The organizations warned of the risks of linking biometric data with telecommunications data and the possibility of reusing it for other purposes, calling for the publication of investigation findings, the strengthening of oversight over telecom companies’ systems, the notification of users about any new lines registered using their data, and the provision of a free and rapid objection mechanism and non-biometric alternatives for verification that take into account the needs of the elderly and persons with disabilities.
Recommended Reading: A Line Registered in Your Name Without Your Knowledge: The Shortcut to Prison
573 Killed in Security Operations
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called on the Public Prosecutor to open formal investigations into the killing of 573 people over 18 months, between January 2025 and June 2026, in security operations announced by the Ministry of Interior in 206 official statements.
The Initiative said that the Ministry described most of the killed as “highly dangerous criminal elements,” and that the official account in the majority of cases stated they were killed during exchanges of fire, before closing the statements with the phrase “legal procedures were taken.” According to the Initiative’s monitoring, 404 people were killed during 2025 in 146 statements, and 169 people during the first half of 2026.
The Initiative focuses not only on the death toll but on the absence of independent investigations through which it could be verified whether the use of lethal force was necessary, and whether it would have been possible to arrest the individuals alive. It cited the killing of Youssef Al-Sarhani, 18 years old, and Faraj Al-Fazzari, 21 years old, in Marsa Matrouh in April 2025, as an example of the need for independent review of official accounts.
The Initiative grounds its demands in the Police Authority Law and the controls governing the use of weapons, as well as international standards requiring necessity, proportionality, and investigation in cases of death related to the use of force by law enforcement agencies.
It called for investigations into all incidents announced by the Ministry of Interior, and for the establishment of an independent body to investigate deaths and injuries caused by police, rather than relying solely on internal reviews.
Religious Belief
In another file, 15 rights organizations demanded the release of 36 Shia Muslims they said were subjected to detention and enforced disappearance, among them journalist Mohamed Haider Kandil, who was arrested on June 22, 2026 while covering the detention of a number of Shia individuals ahead of Ashura commemorations.
According to the organizations, Kandil was detained outside the offices of Al-Dustour newspaper in Al-Doqqi and taken to an unknown location, while others were stopped from their homes, before security forces raided a religious gathering in Al-Sayyida Zeinab on June 24 and arrested more than 20 people.
The organizations said the detainees remained for more than 20 days without contact with their families or lawyers, while Kandil did not appear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution until July 14, where he was charged with leading and financing a terrorist organization, while the others were charged with joining a terrorist group.
One person was released, while the prosecution decided to detain 35 others, before renewing the detention of 32 of them at the end of July. The organizations argue that the case combines two dimensions: the targeting of individuals for their religious beliefs, and the prosecution of a journalist on account of his professional work. They called for an independent investigation into the enforced disappearance incidents and for the cessation of using counter-terrorism legislation against religious minorities and journalists.
Recommended Reading: Texts That Promise Freedom and Practices That Restrict It: The Double Face of Freedom of Belief
Detention Inside Police Stations
In the same context, the case of Mohamed Kandil, known as “Mohannad,” who died inside the Second Tanta Police Station, returned to the fore in August, after the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights filed a civil lawsuit against the Ministry of Interior demanding compensation for his mother for the material and moral damages resulting from his death.
According to the Initiative, Kandil, a 23-year-old microbus driver, was subjected to an assault lasting approximately seven hours inside a cell equipped with surveillance cameras, by four detainees, without intervention from police personnel, before being transferred to hospital and dying in August 2024. The court had sentenced the four detainees to one year of hard labor, a sentence upheld by the Tanta Misdemeanor Court of Appeal in May 2025.
Warraq Island: Nine Years of Dispute Between Development and Residents’ Right to Stay
After nine years since the beginning of the Warraq Island crisis, the dispute between the state’s plans to develop and commercially exploit the island and the residents’ insistence on remaining in their homes and on their land continues. Residents demand that approximately 300 feddans out of the island’s 1,500 feddans be allocated for rebuilding their homes inside the island according to state requirements, with the remaining area left for development projects, but this proposal has not yet received government approval.
The crisis escalated again during August, with residents protesting restrictions on the entry of construction materials, the closure of three of the five ferry crossings, and the demolition of the only hospital, youth center, and post office, according to residents’ testimonies. Residents also say that management of the file has remained largely in the hands of security services, amid the absence of direct and sustained dialogue with the relevant ministries and planning bodies.
The roots of the dispute trace back to government decisions that began in the late 1990s, before the confrontation escalated sharply in 2017, then the island’s file was transferred to the New Urban Communities Authority in 2018. While the government affirms that the development aims to serve the public good while providing compensation and alternative housing, residents argue that what is on offer does not guarantee the preservation of their way of life and properties, and that restrictions on construction and renovation make remaining on the island increasingly difficult.
Recommended Reading: A Development File Managed by Security Services: How Did Warraq Island Reach Its Ninth Year of Crisis?
Concerns About the Expansion of Digital Prosecution
On the level of freedom of expression, preparations to refer a new draft law to the House of Representatives to stiffen penalties on what Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly described as “offensive videos” and “unethical practices” coincide with rights and legal concerns about widening criminalization through undefined terms.
The announcement comes despite the existence of current legal provisions already criminalizing a number of the acts the Prime Minister referred to, including defamation, blackmail, privacy violations, and the dissemination of false news, in addition to Article 25 of the Combating Information Technology Crimes Law, which criminalizes “assaulting the principles or values of the Egyptian family.”
MPs and rights defenders who spoke to Zawia3 in its report argue that the fundamental concern is the addition of new crimes and penalties that broaden the scope of prosecution through undefined terms such as “offensive practices” and “society’s constants.”
The concerns carry greater weight in light of the record of applying this provision since 2018. According to monitoring by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, updated to the end of July 2026, 545 cases or prosecution incidents were documented, affecting 626 individuals, including 392 women and 234 men in at least 17 governorates, covering content related to dancing, singing, comedy, clothing, and manner of speaking on camera, in addition to personal and entertainment content.
From “Aysh w Malh” to “Sally Al-Jabbas”: The Limits of Access to Justice and Information
The rights debate extended to files that appear on the surface to be separate but pose a shared question about the capacity of official institutions to provide protection and justice without the need for popular or media pressure.
In the “Aysh w Malh” restaurant workers incident, a number of workers complained of being employed without contracts and having their work terminated without notice, alongside the non-payment of their dues or the return of their official documents. While the workers resorted to the labor office to settle the dispute, the attempt produced no result, as documented by Zawia3.
In contrast, another incident inside a “Sizzler” restaurant saw a rapid management response after a complaint spread across social media platforms, ending with an apology and the dismissal of the branch manager.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms argues that the contrast between the two incidents reveals a broader problem in labor law enforcement, whereby the ability to obtain one’s rights may become linked to the complaint’s capacity to go viral and become a matter of public opinion, rather than the effectiveness of legal institutions themselves.
The request by the defense team of lawyer Sally Al-Jabbas, accused in the case of her mother’s killing in Alexandria, to the Prosecutor General for a publication ban on the case reopened the debate around the limits of the Public Prosecution’s authority to restrict the circulation of information, according to a report published by Zawia3.
The request comes under the pretext of preserving investigative confidentiality and guaranteeing the accused’s rights, at a time when lawyers and journalists argue that information availability is the default, and that publication bans remain an exceptional measure to be resorted to according to clear and specific justifications.
Zawia3’s report titled “When the Press Falls Silent by Prosecutorial Order” explained that Egyptian law regulates publication bans through a set of legal provisions, including Articles 190 and 193 of the Penal Code and Article 268 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, alongside Articles 68 and 187 of the Constitution. These provisions establish a framework for the confidentiality of some investigation procedures and the publicity of trials, while permitting restrictions on publication in specific cases relating to the protection of investigations, public order, or public morals, while the Constitution guarantees citizens’ right to access information, data, and official documents.
Zawia3 documented the issuance of publication ban decisions over the past decades in corruption and bribery cases and in accusations against officials and public employees, alongside cases involving accusations against police officers in killing and torture incidents, as well as criminal cases that attracted widespread attention. According to the report, the problem does not relate to the existence of legal authority to issue ban decisions, but to the clarity of the criteria governing their use, the reasoning behind decisions, the definition of their scope and duration, and the absence of a clear avenue for challenging them in some cases.
Iman Awf, a member of the Journalists Syndicate Board and rapporteur of the Freedoms Committee, said that publication bans should remain limited, warning against an expansive interpretation of the concept of national security, while political and rights researcher Mostafa Shawky said that investigative confidentiality must aim to protect the course of the investigation and the rights of its parties, not to prevent public debate. The report pointed to a fundamental paradox: while journalists and media institutions comply with ban decisions, unverified information and rumors may continue to spread via social media platforms, making the provision of accurate and regular official information one of the alternatives that can achieve a balance between protecting investigations and the public’s right to knowledge.
Recommended Reading: When the Press Falls Silent by Prosecutorial Order
Persecution Extending to Dissidents’ Families
The Foundation for Law, Democracy and Security said Egyptian authorities are using what it described as “punishment by proxy” and “transnational repression” against family members of dissidents living outside the country.
The Foundation pointed to the detention of four family members of Egyptian-British dissident Mona Al-Shazly, namely Hassan Al-Shazly, Eid Al-Shazly, Iman Al-Shazly, and Shaimaa Al-Shazly, with Saber Mohamed Eid Hassan Al-Shazly having remained disappeared since May 2026. It said the targeting of family members came on the basis of their family connection to Al-Shazly and her opinions published on social media platforms.
The Foundation also spoke of measures it said affected Al-Shazly’s social media accounts, alongside threats and harassment it said she was subjected to in the United Kingdom. In another incident, the Foundation said Ahmed Samir Mohamed Al-Amin, the brother of Egyptian politician Amr Abd El-Hadi residing in Britain, was arrested in August, despite not being involved, according to the Foundation, in any opposition political activity.
Hoda Abd El-Moneim: Years of Detention and the Healthcare Question
Amnesty International brought the case of human rights lawyer Hoda Abd El-Moneim back to the fore, calling for her release after more than seven years of detention, noting that she completed a five-year prison sentence in October 2023 but still faces trial in two separate cases on terrorism-related charges.
The organization said Abd El-Moneim’s health condition has deteriorated severely, to the point where she is unable to walk without assistance, and that she continues to be transferred from prison to court to attend sessions in both cases, despite her health condition, while courts have, according to the organization, rejected defense requests to exempt her from personal appearance and allow her lawyer to represent her.
Amnesty International places the case within the context of arbitrary detention and unfair trials, as well as the right to health and the rights of human rights defenders, at a time when the organization says Egyptian authorities continued throughout 2025 to use terrorism-related charges and pre-trial detention on a wide scale.
Economic and Social Rights
30 Workers Killed and 79 Injured in Five Accidents Over 6 Days
Social and economic rights cases are not confined to individual labor disputes. Thirty male and female workers, including two children, were killed and 79 others were injured, including 12 children, during five accidents in five governorates over six days, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms.
The Commission explained that four of the accidents occurred while workers were traveling to their worksites, and that the majority of the victims were daily laborers, agricultural workers, and construction workers, pointing to the use in some cases of vehicles and roads unsuitable for the numbers of workers and the nature of the journeys.
The Commission argues that the recurrence of accidents on roads that have previously witnessed similar incidents points to a problem that goes beyond driver errors, encompassing the responsibility of employers, contractors, and the bodies organizing the transportation of workers, as well as the safety of the roads themselves. It called for investigations into the causes of the recurrence of these accidents, verification of child labor incidents, and guarantees of the rights of the victims’ families and the injured.
From Expropriation to Subsidies: How the Gap Between Citizen and State Is Widening
Scattered incidents during 2025 and 2026 reveal increasing pressures on citizens’ ability in Egypt to protect their property and access public services and obtain their social entitlements, at a time when the state is expanding its redistribution of land use and resources, whether in favor of infrastructure and investment projects or through the reorganization of subsidy and service systems.
In the expropriation file, the Ministry of Local Development announced the expropriation of 37 plots of land and real estate in Giza for the construction of a traffic axis approximately five kilometers long, in exchange for compensation estimated by the General Survey Authority at approximately 540 million Egyptian pounds ($10.38 million). While the expropriation law permits the state to acquire real estate for the public good according to specific procedures, the problem for property owners lies in the fairness and speed of compensation payment, and their ability to object or negotiate when state projects conflict with their right to property and housing.
The Giza case does not appear isolated from a broader trend. A report by Diwan Al-Omran documented approximately 2.5 million square meters of land expropriated by the state during 2025, directly affecting approximately 2,500 citizens, while road and bridge projects accounted for more than half of the seized areas.
The problem recurs in the reuse of public lands and spaces. The offering of Rawdh Al-Farag Park, with an area of approximately 41,000 square meters, to real estate developers opens a debate about the increasing conversion of open spaces within cities into investable assets.
In the subsidy system, citizens face a different path of economic rights loss. Tens of thousands have been excluded from ration cards under various criteria, while approximately 34,000 citizens await rulings on their appeals, with a preliminary recommendation to restore only approximately 17,000 cards. The difficulty of exclusion is compounded when the citizen finds themselves required to submit documents proving that an exclusion criterion does not apply to them, at a time when the reasons for the decision or the mechanisms for objection are not sufficiently clear.
Recommended Reading: The Expropriation Law: 546,000 Citizens Lost Their Properties in 5 Years
Egyptians in the UAE: Between the Official Account and Affected Residents’ Testimonies
Zawia3 documented the testimonies of 12 Egyptians who said their residency in the UAE was cancelled or could not be renewed, in some cases despite residency remaining valid for months or years, and without receiving a written explanation or a clear avenue for appeal. Some of those affected said they were verbally informed with phrases such as “security cancellation” or that “Egyptians’ residency is suspended,” while others discovered their residency had been cancelled when attempting to return to the UAE after spending their holidays abroad.
In contrast, the Egyptian and Emirati governments deny the existence of exceptional procedures targeting Egyptians, affirming that the cases raised are related to regulatory violations or residency conditions and vetting procedures, and that they are individual cases. Between the two accounts, the most prominent cause for concern remains the absence of a specific official explanation for each case, or a clear mechanism for appeal.
The issue carries particular importance given the size of the Egyptian community in the UAE, estimated at approximately 1.3 million people, and their remittances, which reached approximately $3.6 billion during fiscal year 2024/2025. Workers and labor advocates argue that the breadth of the cases, if confirmed, could transform the matter from individual residency procedures into an issue with economic and social repercussions for thousands of Egyptian families.
Full investigation: Cancelled and Unrenewable Residency: Testimonies of Affected Egyptians in the UAE Clash with the Official Account
Women
When Protection Becomes the Exception: Violence and Unsafe Work in Women’s Lives
The situation of women cannot be separated from the broader picture of economic and social rights in Egypt. While violence figures reveal the continued exposure of women to assault within the family and circles of trust, the conditions of female workers, particularly in the agricultural sector and irregular work, reveal another face of precariousness: women working without adequate social protection, or in conditions that do not guarantee their safety, while many women’s capacity to access justice and protection remains limited.
During the second quarter of 2026, 447 crimes of violence against women and girls were recorded in news published in Egyptian newspapers. Cairo and Giza topped the governorates in terms of documented incidents, with 74 crimes each, followed by Alexandria with 37, Sharqia with 36, then Beheira with 22, Assiut with 21, and Qalyubia with 20 crimes, according to documentation by the Baraha Aman Foundation.
These figures do not necessarily mean that those governorates are the most violent toward women, as monitoring is linked to the volume of press coverage and incidents reaching the media, while other crime numbers remain outside the scope of reporting or documentation, particularly those occurring within the family or in communities where survivors fear stigma or reprisal.
Second quarter data affirms that physical violence continues to lead the documented patterns, from killing and assault to severe beatings, alongside forms of psychological violence such as threats, humiliation, public shaming, and psychological manipulation.
18 suicide incidents were also recorded over three months, figures that should be treated with caution, as published news does not always reveal the full circumstances of the death, and investigations in some cases may reveal the existence of prior violence or crime.
The documented incidents included the seizure of property, refusal to provide financial support, deprivation of inheritance and child support, eviction from the home, house arrest, deprivation of children, and reputational damage. 20 rape crimes were also recorded, 11 sexual assault incidents, and 6 cases of sexual blackmail, alongside incidents related to forced marriage and the marriage of underage girls.
Wives topped the categories subjected to violence in the documented incidents, followed by daughters, grandmothers, and divorced women, while family members, including fathers and members of the extended family, appeared among the perpetrators of a number of sexual assault crimes. Crimes related to the rejection of a relationship or its termination were also recorded, including four crimes against women for rejecting marriage and six crimes against former fiancées for ending or refusing to continue the relationship.
This violence also extends to the digital space: 11 cases of electronic blackmail and 5 cases of public shaming via social media platforms were recorded. These figures cannot be considered an indicator of the true scale of digital violence, given the weakness of reporting and the fear of stigma or of personal content being used to exercise further control over victims.
Data from the first half of the year reinforces the same picture. According to a report by the Observatory for Crimes of Gender-Based Violence Against Women and Girls at the Idrak Foundation for Development and Equality, 598 incidents of violence were recorded during the first six months of 2026, compared to 495 incidents during the same period in 2025, an increase of 20.81%. The incidents included 141 cases of sexual harassment, 118 murders of women and girls, and 115 cases of severe beating, while 245 incidents occurred in the context of domestic violence, representing approximately 41% of the total documented cases.
From Domestic Violence to Insecurity at Work
If domestic violence reveals the precariousness of women’s protection in the private sphere, the conditions of female workers reveal another precariousness in the economic sphere. The picture is clearest for women working in unregulated or seasonal sectors, such as agriculture, where limited income intersects with the absence of contracts and insurance and unsafe working conditions.
Ministry of Social Solidarity data for 2024 indicates that women represent approximately 58% of the informal labor force. Despite the inclusion of some categories of irregular labor within the social insurance system under Social Insurance and Pensions Law No. 148 of 2019, protection gaps persist, whether due to difficulty of registration, high contributions, complex procedures, or the inadequacy of the protection system to the nature of seasonal and unstable work.
These gaps are clearly visible in the agricultural sector. In August 2026, 22 female agricultural workers were injured in a pickup truck rollover accident while transporting the workers on the Balbeis-Abu Zaabel road in Sharqia Governorate. While the incident appears at first glance to be a road accident, it raises a broader question about the working conditions themselves: who is responsible for transporting the workers? Are transport means subject to oversight? And does the absence of contracts or the multiplicity of employment parties become a pretext for disclaiming responsibility?
Recommended Reading: No Rest, No Restrooms, No Ambulance: Female Agricultural Workers Pay the Price of Climate Change Alone
Women’s Economic Rights: Incomplete Protection
Women’s economic precariousness does not stop at working conditions, but extends to their capacity to obtain the social rights the state is supposed to provide. Women working without insurance or a stable income face multiplied risks in cases of illness, injury, pregnancy, or loss of income, while the absence of protection may increase their dependence on the family, even in cases where the family itself is a source of violence.
From this perspective, the demands related to expanding the insurance umbrella, regulating irregular labor, guaranteeing fair wages, and occupational safety and health carry importance beyond the immediate labor dimension. They are part of women’s capacity for economic independence and the reduction of their exposure to violence and blackmail.
The “Women Outside Coverage” initiative, launched by the Insaf Initiative, points precisely to this gap, arguing that social justice and gender justice are two intertwined paths, and that the inclusion of irregular labor in the insurance system is insufficient unless the procedures for benefiting from protection are applicable and proportionate to the nature of the work.
Labor Rights and the Right to Organize: Another Face of Protection
The issue does not stop with female workers. In August, workers of the Egypt Al-Amriya Spinning and Weaving Company in Alexandria went on strike demanding financial rights, including the calculation of the special increment at 12% of the insured wage, while the company’s management announced the indefinite suspension of the factory’s operations.
The incident reveals, in a broader context, the importance of the right to organize and collective bargaining as part of the system of economic and social rights. When effective negotiation channels are absent, disputes related to wages and working conditions become open crises, while the worker becomes the weaker party in the face of management decisions.
For women, the weakness of labor market protection carries multiplied effects, because income instability, the absence of insurance, and lack of protection from dismissal or arbitrary treatment may increase their economic dependence and limit their ability to leave violent relationships or situations.
Heritage Gardens Also in the Investment Circle: A Legal Dispute Over the “Zahriya”
The debate over the reuse of public spaces is not limited to lands whose ownership is expropriated or parks offered to investors, but extends to spaces of environmental and heritage value, as in the case of the Zahriya Garden in the Zamalek area.
On August 9, the Egyptian Foundation for Environmental Rights announced the scheduling of a September 6, 2026 session to hear its appeal against the ruling of the Cairo Court of Summary Proceedings finding it lacks jurisdiction in the case it filed concerning the garden. The court had ruled on July 26 that it lacked material jurisdiction to hear the case, on the grounds that the condition of urgency was not met, while ordering the Foundation to pay costs and attorney’s fees.
The case dates to June 3, 2026, when, according to the Foundation, equipment, caravans, and wooden construction tools began entering the garden’s premises in preparation for the implementation of a development project by a private company that includes commercial and tourism facilities. The Foundation says the project began without conducting an environmental impact assessment or holding community hearings, and therefore resorted to the summary court with the aim of establishing the facts and documenting what was happening on the ground before its features were altered.
The appeal maintains that the ruling misapplied the law, citing Article 83 bis of the Environmental Law, which stipulates that cases involving violations of the law’s provisions are to be heard urgently. The Foundation also argues that the commencement of construction work inside a garden of historical and environmental value constitutes a danger warranting an urgent precautionary measure, and that its request did not aim to adjudicate the substance of the right or to cancel contracts, but to establish the material facts and document the incident.
