Academic and human rights activist Laila Soueif announced her return to a total hunger strike, begun in late September, protesting continued detention of her son Alaa Abdel Fattah despite the legal completion of his sentence on 28 September 2024.
She suffered a serious setback over the past month: blood glucose fell to 20 mg/dL, requiring urgent medical care, her family announced on 30 May.
What Does a Blood Glucose Level of 20 mg/dL Mean?
Soueif’s level raised serious fears for her life. Normal fasting glucose is roughly 70–100 mg/dL; below seventy is hypoglycaemia. Below 54 becomes dangerous and requires immediate medical intervention. Twenty places her in severe danger, far below safe levels. The brain and vital organs lack energy, risking unconsciousness, seizures or coma without rapid care.
Doctors explain that acute low glucose immediately affects nerves and muscles. Trembling, sweating, racing heart and confusion appear below normal ranges. Below around thirty, consciousness may fail, with fainting or seizures. Without rapid glucose replacement, such as intravenously, coma or death may follow.
Despite warnings, Soueif remains determined while her son is imprisoned. Daughter Sanaa Seif says she refuses glucose and artificial nutrition despite doctors’ advice. Her family says maternal responsibility and pursuit of justice drive her decision: her own life comes second to her son’s freedom. Supporters fear deterioration while the family hopes to save Alaa before the ultimate cost.
She began her open strike on 30 September 2024 after the family’s stated 29 September sentence completion. Alaa, sentenced to five years since 2019 for false news, remains held because authorities count from final judgment rather than arrest, extending detention to 3 January 2027.
She previously told Zawia3 he completed the legal term but authorities refuse release or a clear explanation.
Despite declining health, she travelled from London to Cairo in May to visit him. Family lawyers submitted two release requests based on sentence completion, but prosecutors maintained their calculation.
Alaa began his own hunger strike in Wadi El-Natrun in March after learning of his mother’s hospitalisation.
Examination Restrictions Drive Mohamed Adel to Another Hunger Strike
Former April 6 spokesperson Mohamed Adel began a strike in early May after being barred from second-semester examinations for his public law diploma at Mansoura University, his wife said.
Gamasa Prison previously denied first-semester exams, prompting a strike before transfer to 10th of Ramadan improved conditions.
EIPR submitted Complaint No. 35490 seeking investigation of education denial and formally notified the Interior Ministry and Prison Authority to allow exams scheduled 17 May–4 June 2025. Requests were rejected.
His lawyer filed Administrative Court challenge No. 50165 of Judicial Year 79, but hearing was postponed to 1 June, described as after the examination deadline.
El-Tantawy Released
Former presidential candidate Ahmed El-Tantawy was freed Wednesday after a one-year sentence in the popular endorsements case over his 2023 candidacy. He still faces two new incitement cases. Lawyer Khaled Ali confirmed on 28 May that he was home in Kafr El-Sheikh; lawyer Mohamed Abu El-Diyar would be released 4 June.
The lawyer said El-Tantawy was questioned on 26 April in Supreme State Security Cases Nos. 2468 and 2635 of 2023 for allegedly inciting terrorist violence and assembly over two October 2023 Palestine solidarity protests. Prosecutors ordered release pending both without pretrial detention.
In April, public figures, rights organisations and political movements signed a commission petition seeking release of El-Tantawy and campaign director Abu El-Diyar upon sentence completion.
Rasha Qandil Released on Bail
On Sunday evening, 25 May, State Security Prosecution released journalist and broadcaster Rasha Qandil on EGP 50,000 bail in Case No. 4196 of 2025, Khaled Ali reported on Facebook.
Eight hours’ questioning involved allegations of broadcasting false rumours, information and news domestically and abroad after 31 complaints from people across professions and governorates.
Articles included “Is Egypt on the Brink of an Explosion?” National Security inquiries also supported allegations.
Rights Groups Demand Release of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh’s Son
Organisations expressed concern over Ahmed Aboul Fotouh’s trial, beginning Sunday, 27 April, before an exceptional Emergency State Security Criminal Court. Authorities accuse the Strong Egypt Party leader’s son of publishing information on his father’s prison violations.
The organisations condemned an emergency court known for harsh opponent, journalist and defender sentences and absent minimum fair-trial safeguards, demanding dismissal.
Ahmed was arrested renewing his driving licence at Katameya on 16 April under a May 2022 in-absentia fifteen-year sentence for terrorist membership, also imposed on his father, deputy Mohamed El-Qassas and activist Moaz El-Sharqawy.
They said these unlawful emergency judgments cannot be appealed and the newly passed Criminal Procedure Law normalises such practices.
They sought release of all four and all political and rights prisoners, an end to retaliatory prosecutions, case recycling and use of terrorism cases for political score-settling.
Journalist Mohamed Saad Khattab Remains Detained
The Criminal Court’s First Circuit renewed his detention 45 days pending investigations.
He faces false-news, terrorist membership and social-media misuse charges in Supreme State Security Case No. 2063 of 2023.
Khattab, 71, has severe health decline after neck and back surgeries, coronary insufficiency with four stents, hypertension and diabetes. His 7 November 2023 request for an official medical commission remains unresolved. Arrested at his Nasr City office on 19 August 2023, he remains in pretrial detention.
Human Rights Defender Mohamed Abdel Salam Stopped
National Security officers stopped AFTE director Mohamed Abdel Salam at Cairo Airport early Monday, 20 May, returning from Berlin, and questioned him for hours before release.
He told Zawia3 questions concerned work and travel despite lawful Social Solidarity Ministry registration and no announced charges. Arrival-watchlist security restrictions had continued from 2012 to 2023.
He said the trip was private holiday without German government or political meetings and AFTE has no foreign government dealings. An officer demanded his phone and told him to consider this a new phase.
His passport was returned the next day, but he sees broader political messages to rights workers at sensitive regional or political moments.
He contacted the National Council for Human Rights and MPs to understand the incident; treatment later abruptly became fully respectful without charges.
He sees continued unannounced pressure on independent civil society. He called it part of a restrictive environment to confront through public discussion and defence of mobility and independent work.
The incident fits broader security pressure amid demands to safeguard movement and civil society activity.
Organisations Condemn Extrajudicial Killings
Rights groups expressed solidarity with Marsa Matrouh residents after two young men were killed during pursuit of a wanted person, according to consistent local, family and witness accounts.
Their statement described extrajudicial executions similar to documented incidents officially justified as gunfire exchanges or counterterrorism amid impunity.
They demanded urgent impartial investigation into killings and arbitrary detention of dozens of women, warning that unaccountability threatens stability in a community with strong family and tribal ties.
On Wednesday, 9 April 2025, police attempting a life-sentence drug suspect’s arrest in El-Negila exchanged fire, killing three officers while wanted people escaped.
Thousands Referred to Terrorism Circuits Raise Justice Concerns
Over eight months, State Security Prosecution referred at least 186 cases involving more than six thousand defendants to terrorism circuits, according to an early-May joint statement.
Organisations called this a manoeuvre around UN demands to end arbitrary pretrial detention. Trials lack minimum safeguards and entrench unaccountability. The statement requested five essential justice steps.
Hisham Kassem Sentenced in Absentia
On 14 May 2025, Cairo Economic Misdemeanour Court sentenced publisher and dissident Hisham Kassem to six months with labour and EGP 20,000 fine for insult, defamation and harassment in former Labour and Migration Minister Nahed Ashry’s case.
He already served six months after September 2023 conviction over the same post criticising Ashry and Kamal Abu Eita. Rights criticism cited defence and trial violations, denied file access and exclusion of journalists and diplomats. He hunger-struck twenty days.
Rights organisations condemned continued repression through vague defamation and harassment laws, amid criticism of military economic involvement and political dominance, reflecting corruption and unaccountability.
Student Leader Moaz El-Sharqawy Risks Life Imprisonment
EIPR condemned continuing judicial targeting of El-Sharqawy, 31, rearrested two years earlier and facing three simultaneous trials on identical Muslim Brotherhood terrorist membership allegations.
Its statement said repeated trials for the same facts violate criminal procedure and threaten justice.
Despite potential life sentences, no investigations address prosecution testimony or family and lawyer complaints about repeated disappearance and torture since 2017. EIPR sought fair-trial safeguards and investigation.
He was a prominent student activist at Al-Azhar and detained in 2018 for a prolonged period before release.
Journalists Syndicate Campaigns against Press Law Article 12
Head Khaled El-Balshy launched a campaign to amend Law No. 180 of 2018’s Article 12, requiring prior security permits for public reporting and photography.
The article recognises attendance at public conferences, sessions and meetings, citizen interviews and photography where permitted, but adds necessary-permit requirements. The campaign seeks deletion of that discretionary restriction.
Given limited parliamentary time, the syndicate prioritises this article despite other needed reforms, restoring the press card as sole legal reporting permission through parliamentary communication, bloc meetings and newsroom awareness.
Parliament Finally Approves Fatwa Regulation despite Objections
Parliament approved the government bill after Al-Azhar-responsive amendments but rejected removal of Article 8 imprisonment despite syndicate and rights objections.
El-Balshy requested deletion in a letter to Speaker Hanafy Gebaly. Violating fatwa publication rules brings up to six months and EGP 50,000–100,000, or either. He cited constitutional Article 71’s publication-imprisonment ban and Press Law Article 29.
EIPR criticised added official religious powers and monopolisation of discourse, infringing expression and belief.
It urged the president not to ratify and to return the bill for freedom and public-space review.
Calls for Comprehensive Electoral Law Reform
Parties and rights organisations sought revision of the new law combining absolute closed lists and individual seats, reproducing one-sided politics instead of proportional representation sought by opposition.
The Egyptian Front published a research paper seeking genuine representation and restored trust amid confrontational social, economic and legislative policies since 2015.
It called for proportional lists, gradual elimination of individual seats, independent lists alongside party lists and restriction of individual contests to independents to offset resource disparities and restore real oversight.
Demolition Decisions without Official Notice
Residents of eastern and western El-Omraniya, Giza, fear losing decades-old homes without alternatives or fair compensation. They appealed urgently to President El-Sisi to stop removals and guarantee remaining or dignified replacement housing.
Technical committees inventoried and numbered around two hundred properties from El-Mahmoudiya and El-Zahraa towers to the Middle Ring Road for Kamal Amer corridor expansion. Some were verbally told departure could occur within weeks, without official notice, compensation or alternative plans amid economic hardship.
Al-Waqa’i Al-Misriyya Issue 241 of 31 October 2024 published Housing Ministry Decision No. 1102 of 2024 expropriating Giza land for the former El-Zomor Canal corridor, based on constitutional provisions, local administration and expropriation laws and Presidential Decree No. 279 of 2018.
Read Zawia3’s detailed report: El-Omraniya Residents Face Demolition without Official Notice or Alternative Housing
Behind El-Ferdous Village Demolitions in Port Said
The governorate demolishes homes despite legal contracts and final ownership judgments, without notice or compensation, raising constitutional and legal questions.
The Mediterranean village, around five kilometres from central Port Said, has more than 1,200 seasonal and permanent chalets.
In “Usufruct Rights Crushed by Bulldozers,” seven residents described serious damage and seizures without explanation. Beyond El-Araby Allam’s property, forces seized vehicles, equipment, microbuses and belongings from closed chalets without notifying absent owners.
Zawia3 reviewed receipts showing full payments to the governorate and electricity and water services.
The incident belongs to a decade-long pattern of development removing established communities without fair safeguards or participation.
Maspero, Warraq, Nazlet El-Semman and Manshiyet Nasser saw high-value investment expansion alongside sudden or forced evacuation, opaque negotiations and below-market compensation. Thousands left Maspero for limited payments or El-Asmarat units despite objections.
Warraq’s roughly one hundred thousand residents were offered EGP 1,400 per square metre against around EGP 8,000 market value; eviction clashes killed one person. Nazlet El-Semman compensation followed protests and arrests amid exclusion from planning.
Unsafe classifications justified Manshiyet Nasser removals without clear solutions. El-Ferdous similarly privileges administration and property expansion over housing and negotiation, questioning development and justice boundaries.
A decision referring illegal construction and encroachments to military courts also prompted controversy over civilians’ constitutional right to ordinary judges.
Executive bodies cite state-land protection while organisations warn against exceptional courts in civil matters.
Read the report: Illegal Construction Enters the Spiral of Military Courts
Do Six Million Citizens Face Eviction?
Old-rent amendments divide owners seeking restored rights after frozen rents and tenants fearing harm without alternatives. Tenant Nagwa warned that disregard for vulnerability directly threatens stability.
Government submitted its draft to parliament and Housing Committee, with sharp divisions over provisions regarded as unrealistic and lacking social and humanitarian consideration.
For “Do Six Million Citizens Face Eviction? The Other Side of Old Rent Amendments,” Zawia3 interviewed more than twenty owners and tenants plus experts and officials to examine motives and positions.
66% of Egyptians below the Poverty Line
The World Bank reported a share exceeding 66%, around seventy million people, below the international line, reflecting deteriorating conditions and future social and economic risk.
The May 2025 report estimates 66.2% below USD 6.85 daily, described as around EGP 10,000 monthly, compared with sixty percent four years earlier.
These estimates use the September 2022 international threshold of USD 6.85 for upper-middle-income countries such as Egypt.
CAPMAS official data use EGP 10,279 annually, around EGP 856 monthly, exposing different poverty measures and questions about accuracy and realism.
Workers’ Rights
In May 2025, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights secured North Cairo Labour Circuit 40’s reinstatement and entitlements for a Hassan Allam unionist imprisoned and suspended five years for demanding dues.
El-Shorbagy Workers Return after Measures against Eighteen Reversed
Al-Nasr Spinning, Weaving and Knitting workers returned after cancellation of arbitrary measures against eighteen, including dismissals of Magda Gouda and Doaa Sayed Ahmed, whose reinstatement implementation was expected shortly.
MP Nashwa El-Deeb’s meeting with managing director Ahmed Shaker produced instructions cancelling protest-related sanctions.
Union chair Mostafa Arafa confirmed return on Thursday, 8 May 2025, through understanding rather than abandoned demands.
Workers still seek Saturday as a paid day off, reject its conversion to work, and face low and irregular wages. April salaries arrived in early May rather than the usual 26th. The union committee remains frozen.
The 29 April strike concerned living conditions, pay disparities with Misr Helwan colleagues in the same holding company and years of temporary contracts. Management dismissed two women, transferred two others and withheld incentives for six months.
Rising Deaths among Young Doctors
The sixth issue of the centre’s nonperiodical Lotus magazine warned that dozens of young doctors and nurses recently died suddenly, requiring scientific study amid demands for conditions and shorter hours, emigration, placement crises and specialty shortages.
In April, patients including Michael and Hany complained to international and local bodies that UNODC executive director and former Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly misled the international community about methadone.
Complaints obtained by Zawia3 said she praised success at Vienna’s 68th Commission on Narcotic Drugs on 14 March 2025, two weeks before sudden cessation without warning or alternatives. Patients in “Addiction Treatment Collapses in Egypt: The Methadone Crisis Exposes Harm Reduction Failures” said she ignored earlier appeals.
A UN Ethics Office complaint said unsafe unsupervised suspension of a programme officially partnered with UNODC endangered lives through severe withdrawal, trauma and increased death risk.
It said conduct may amount to misconduct, negligence or abuse of authority and sought independent UN investigation, citing Waly’s statements and responsibility.
A collective 27 April complaint went to OHCHR, UNODC, WHO Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, titled “Abrupt Termination of Egypt’s Methadone Treatment Programme Violates Human Rights.”
Patients, families and defenders accused the Health Ministry of abrupt termination, forced dose reductions, surprise tests and arbitrary exclusion without medical or legal justification, contrary to law, rights standards and ethics.
It contrasted Vienna’s success account with Abbasiya and other public hospitals reducing doses without notice or individual assessment and expelling positive-test patients despite possible withdrawal-related results.
The contradiction may reflect unprofessional or political decisions requiring urgent international inquiry.
A Historic Recommendation for Reproductive Justice
The Administrative Court’s State Commissioners Authority recommended allowing a woman samples and tests from her husband, serving fifteen years in Minya, for self-funded ICSI. Its April 2025 report in Case No. 41283 of Judicial Year 79 cited constitutional family stability and legality of crimes and judicial punishment.
It drew on higher-court rulings that personal liberty includes marriage and family formation, requiring dignified prisoner treatment. It cited Kirk and Lorraine Dickson’s artificial insemination request, where the European Court’s Grand Chamber found Britain’s refusal violated Article 8.
The Egyptian Center and lawyer Ehab El-Garhy sued Interior Ministry, human rights and Minya community protection officials over refusal to allow samples for ICSI at the claimant’s expense.
The Fayoum woman married in 2014 and, after infertility, successfully conceived triplets through ICSI. Her husband’s January 2015 arrest and eventual 2022 fifteen-year sentence led to miscarriage under psychological stress.
At 36, declining fertility and health rule out natural conception; reunion is not expected before 2037, making ICSI her only motherhood opportunity.
Her request stressed full self-funding and legality, but officials did not respond.
Centre director Malek Adly welcomed the recommendation, noting scientific progress offers ICSI instead of conjugal visits. He awaited judgment and hoped adoption because neither Constitution nor law prevents pregnancy with her husband, imprisoned politically over a protest case.
He said the case offers recognition of political prisoners’ families denied reproductive and family rights by long sentences over differing political affiliation or views.
Higher Court Fees Deepen Women’s Vulnerability
Women’s organisations including the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, New Woman Foundation, Cairo Foundation and Egyptian Women Lawyers initiative condemned increases as deepening insecurity and limiting justice access.
The New Woman Foundation’s statement said justice digitalisation began in 2016, promoted as easier and faster under the ministry’s strategy, but fees rose continuously, sometimes exceeding ten times original rates.
Increases occurred without transparent legislation or social impact assessment and no improved access guarantees, becoming exclusionary for marginalised women and raising constitutional and international compliance concerns.
Its report found growing violence and personal status litigation costs during 2019–2025. Direct and indirect charges, digital costs and unstable geographically varying fees make access dependent on wealth and location, deepening discrimination.
“Justice Is Every Woman’s Right,” by women’s legal organisations, condemned Cairo Appeals Court’s ten-percent increase, disproportionately affecting economically vulnerable women seeking maintenance, custody and divorce.
Its statement cited constitutional Articles 97, 9 and 11 on access, equality and protection, and Law No. 1 of 2000 Article 3 exempting maintenance-related proceedings from all fees. Yet document charges persist without clear legal grounds.
Remote and rural women with less legal knowledge and fewer services face added barriers. It sought Bar Association and judicial intervention and serious ministry dialogue on exemptions or support so justice is not conditioned on money.
Cairo Foundation chair Entesar El-Saeed said fragile finances block family and violence proceedings, widening the gap between universal legal rights and money-dependent reality.
She said absent gender-sensitive policy turns justice into privilege, forcing women to choose submission or unaffordable legal battles and entrenching exclusion.
Judgment copies and applications become barriers for marginalised women and survivors, denying remedies and empowerment.
She rejected commodified justice, stressing state responsibility without discrimination or financial barriers and constitutional and international commitments, including the civil and political rights covenant.
Reduced UNHCR Support Threatens Refugee Families
UNHCR Egypt recently announced fewer monthly assistance recipients from this month amid severe funding problems.
Support prioritises the neediest. Excluded families receive texts to registered numbers, with updates available through hotline, reception or partners. Economic assessment interviews are suspended.
By end-March 2025, around 942,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers represented over sixty nationalities, led by Sudanese, then Syrian, Eritrean, Ethiopian, South Sudanese, Somali, Yemeni and Iraqi people. Most live in Greater Cairo and Alexandria, relying on aid amid economic and formal-work barriers.
The UN describes refugees as forced from home by war, violence or persecution and unable or afraid to return. The 1951 Convention covers well-founded persecution fears based on race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion and inability or unwillingness to seek home-country protection.
Spokesperson Christine Beshay told Zawia3 global shortages mean precise vulnerability assessments direct available resources. UNHCR recognises harm and coordinates with authorities and partners, seeking sustainable international and private-sector support.
It supports infrastructure and services for refugees and host communities. Severe humanitarian cuts already threaten millions.
Beshay described immediate cuts to vital medicine, emergency shelter, food, water, relief and protection for children and survivors of sexual violence and trafficking. With wars forcing flight, unsupported vulnerable people will suffer and die. This is a responsibility crisis, not merely funding: support promotes stability, safer migration, local economies and peace.
Read the detailed report: UNHCR Support Cuts Threaten Refugees’ Lives in Egypt
Closing 120 Libraries and Cultural Centres
Culture Ministry plans to vacate 120 rented libraries and centres across governorates, return them to owners and redistribute staff provoked anger as a retreat from constitutional cultural justice.
Article 48, amended in 2019, guarantees culture for all without discrimination. Critics say withdrawal from marginalised areas encourages ignorance and undermines public cultural institutions.
Assistant Minister Khaled El-Labban instructed regional heads under board session 324 of 5 March 2025, ratified on 13 March, with evacuation by 29 May.
The General Organization for Cultural Palaces faces an annual activity budget of only EGP 87 million, specialist shortages and inadequate facilities, acknowledged by Minister Ahmed Fouad Hanno before the Senate in January the preceding year.
It nevertheless delivered over ninety thousand activities for around four million citizens in 2024.
Officials put current sites at 619, falling to around five hundred with closure of nearly one hundred centres. CAPMAS’s 2022 report showed palaces and centres declining from 594 in 2016 to 347 in 2021, with 336 in 2017 marking sharp decline.
MPs filed urgent questions. Cultural figures told Zawia3 in “Closing 120 Libraries and Cultural Centres: Cultural Contraction Becomes Official” that this exceeds administrative rationalisation, reducing public enlightenment and shifting culture from a universal right to a paid elite privilege amid privatisation signs.
