The rate of complaints filed by Egyptian lawyers against those they consider to be in violation, whether politically or morally, as they claim, has increased in recent years, and these complaints have been directed against artists, content creators and opposition politicians. Among the complaints filed recently were three complaints against opposition politician and poet Ahmed Douma, one year after his release from prison by presidential pardon, after he had been imprisoned for about ten years following a 15-year prison sentence in the case known as the Cabinet events.
The State Security Prosecution had released Douma on 10 November on bail of EGP 20,000, after charging him with broadcasting false news at home and abroad, in case No. 5892 of 2024 (Supreme State Security), under Article 102 bis of Penal Code No. 58 of 1937, after an investigation lasting about five hours, attended by Douma along with a number of members of his defence team.
The investigations came following the complaint filed by lawyer Dina El-Mokadem, a member of the Coordination of Party Youth Leaders and Politicians, to the Public Prosecutor against Douma on 31 October, accusing him of spreading rumours that threaten the stability of public security and spread fear among citizens, which could harm the public interest. In her complaint, El-Mokadem demanded a harsher penalty against him, given what she described as committing a crime in wartime, based on Articles 102 bis and 188 of the Penal Code.
The complaint came after the Egyptian Armed Forces denied the existence of any kind of military cooperation with the Israeli occupation, against the backdrop of the crisis over the ship “Kathrin” entering the port of Alexandria, despite suspicions surrounding it of carrying explosive materials bound for the occupation army.
On 5 October, the Public Prosecution issued a statement on its official Facebook account, indicating that it was investigating complaints filed by a number of people concerning a poetry collection “containing phrases constituting an assault on the Divine Self and contempt of religions”. The prosecution said that on reviewing the collection in question online, it was found to contain these phrases. The prosecution requested police investigations into the incident and asked for Al-Azhar’s opinion.
Vague Accusations
The prosecution’s statement did not explicitly name Douma, but according to what he confirms to Zawia3, he is the one meant by the statement, and his collection entitled “Curly”, which he wrote during his imprisonment following the sentence against him, is the one referred to in the complaints.
This step came two months after the decision by Dar El Maraya for Cultural Production to postpone a seminar scheduled for 19 July to launch and discuss the collection “Curly”. The publisher did not specify the reasons for the postponement, merely clarifying that they were “circumstances beyond everyone’s control”. The decision came after statements by sheikhs who accused Douma of madness, unbelief and apostasy, and demanded that the Islamic Research Academy confiscate his collection and ban its printing and circulation.
Commenting on this, Douma says: “Throughout my years of public activism, I have been subjected to political and religious hisba lawsuits, or fabrications by people backed by the security agencies who carry Bar Association cards. These complaints targeted me because of my activism and political positions; the security agencies are usually their main driver.”
Regarding the complaint recently filed against him, he explains: “The charge of contempt of religion and its companion, assault on the Divine Self, are clearly incitement to murder,” considering that everyone who has directed this accusation at him, whether by promoting it, through fatwas by sheikhs affiliated with the security agencies, or by investigation or fabrication in any form, is a partner in the crime of incitement to murder and of threatening his personal safety and security.
He explains that none of these people has a copy of the collection at all, and the Public Prosecutor said an electronic copy had reached him, even though no electronic copy of the collection was ever produced. He adds: “Perhaps the security agencies confiscated a file containing a draft (an unpublished copy) of the second edition, and it was leaked so that the accusations of unbelief and contempt could begin.”
Douma points out that the step comes in preparation for one of two steps: either creating a justification for a disciplinary attack or liquidation (for not complying with the orders that reach him), or paving the way for re-arrest. He says the only crime in all this is the theft of a file from his personal device, in addition to the crime of claiming that this copy is available to the public. He denounces the Public Prosecution’s failure to open any investigation into complaints filed years ago about torture, injuries and deaths among detainees, while the prosecution is keen to monitor social media and move quickly under the pretext of defending religions and the Divine Self.
Article 98(f) of the Penal Code stipulates a penalty of imprisonment of no less than 6 months and no more than 5 years, or a fine of no less than EGP 500 and no more than EGP 1,000, for anyone who exploits religion to promote, by speech, writing or any other means, extremist ideas with the intent of inciting strife, or of degrading or showing contempt for the heavenly religions or the sects belonging to them, or of harming national unity or social peace.
In a statement issued by Egyptian non-governmental human rights organisations calling for the protection of cultural institutions in Egypt, they condemned the security forces’ raid on Dar El Maraya days after the cancellation of the collection’s signing event. The organisations said these moves are in harmony with security policies restricting freedom of creativity and artistic expression, at the heart of which is tightening the noose on independent cultural organisations by terrorising them in several ways, foremost among them security targeting and the use of the artistic works censorship authority and taxes to deflect suspicion of the political targeting of these organisations.
The statement explained that cultural institutions and creators in Egypt suffer serious violations for publishing creative works that do not align with the political regime’s orientations, in violation of Article 67 of the Egyptian Constitution, which protects freedom of creativity. Poet Galal El-Behairy is still in pretrial detention after being “recycled” into a new case upon completing the prison sentence imposed on him by a military court over a poetry collection entitled “The Best Women on Earth”, and Dar Tanmia is still barred from participating in the book fair for the fourth consecutive year after its founder, Khaled Lotfy, was imprisoned by a military court for five years following his arrest in 2018 on charges of disclosing military secrets for distributing the Arabic edition of the book “The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel”, in addition to numerous violations affecting a large number of cultural organisations and creators over their creative works in the past ten years.
Last January, Ayman Mahfouz, a lawyer at the Court of Cassation, filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor accusing Ahmed Douma of disturbing public peace and spreading false news, after he and others appeared on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate chanting slogans criticising the Egyptian and Arab position on the genocide Gaza is being subjected to at the hands of the occupation forces.
In the first week of this October, lawyer Sabra El-Qasimi, founder of the Centrist Front for Combating Extremism, filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor, No. 936183 of 2024, against Ahmed Douma and others, the owner of a publishing house, its executive director and its employees, for publishing a collection entitled “Curly” containing words the lawyer considered “insult, defamation and affront to the Divine Self”.
Contempt of Religion
Cases known as contempt of religion have developed historically in Egypt, from their old name, “hisba cases”, to the current text included in Article 98 of the Egyptian Penal Code, after the events known as the “Al-Zawiya Al-Hamra sectarian strife events” of 1981.
The Egyptian government at the time submitted a bill to amend a number of Penal Code articles and add others, including articles on increasing the penalty stipulated in Article 160, related to the right to practise religious rites free from violence, and amending Article 201 on criminalising the misuse of religious discourse. The aim of these amendments was to punish clergy who misuse religious discourse to incite violence and threaten citizens’ security, but years later the scope of criminalisation was expanded to include all citizens rather than clergy alone, according to a research paper issued by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (a non-governmental human rights organisation) in December 2020 entitled “Contempt of Religion… a Pretext for Suppressing Academic Freedom“.
The use of the charge of “contempt of religion” has expanded against those who express views contrary to the prevailing beliefs in society, whether criticism of religions, belief in denominations and sects not widespread in society, or free expression of opinion, as long as it comes even remotely close to the heavenly religions. Any work, even a literary or scientific one, can now lead its author to imprisonment on a charge of contempt of religion.
Cases against dissenting writers and intellectuals over their views on beliefs did not stop there; they extended to so-called influencers and bloggers on social media as part of the “Campaign to Cleanse Society” founded by lawyer Ashraf Farahat, who accused them of being led by Satan to spread corruption and make profits. Some lawyers took turns directing various accusations at them, ranging from offending public decency to threatening the values of the Egyptian family, and at times prison sentences were issued against those accused in some of the complaints.
On 1 October, the Child Misdemeanour Court in Egypt sentenced “blogger” Suzy Ayman (known as Suzy El-Ordonia) to two years in prison and a fine of EGP 300,000 on a charge of “violating family values”, following the complaint filed by lawyer Ayman Mahfouz accusing her of violating the law, destroying societal values and publishing videos offending public decency, over a live broadcast in which she appeared quarrelling with her father after he seized her money during her illness.
Suzy El-Ordonia is among the girls and women on social media platforms who have entered the whirlpool of security prosecution since the security authorities began targeting them under the pretext of protecting society and the Egyptian family. It began with university student Haneen Hossam, the first to be accused of threatening family values during her interrogation after her arrest in April 2020, following a complaint filed by lawyer Samir Sabry, before she was acquitted and tried again on the same charges before the criminal court. Since then, complaints against women and girls on social media platforms have followed under the pretext of protecting family values from threat.
Article 25 of the 2018 Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law stipulates that “anyone who violates any of the family principles or values in Egyptian society, violates the sanctity of private life, or sends numerous electronic messages to a person without his consent… shall be punished by imprisonment for no less than six months and a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 pounds, or one of these two penalties”.
Human rights lawyer Intisar El-Saeed, chair of the board of trustees of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, says that the women and girls accused of threatening societal and family values were referred to trial under Article 10 of the 2014 Constitution, which states that “the family is the basis of society and is founded on religion, morality and patriotism. The state shall ensure its cohesion and stability and the consolidation of its values.”
The human rights lawyer believes that the charges directed at girls and women, of inciting debauchery and immorality and threatening society and family values, are vague, undefined charges that open the door to whims and personal assessments. She points out that neither debauchery and immorality nor family values have a specific definition in law, and values differ from one society to another; the clothes these girls and women wear, and on the basis of which they are tried, are worn by actresses at festivals and various occasions and are considered normal, but TikTok girls and women come from simple social backgrounds, which provokes society against them, and this is class discrimination linked to gender that is applied against them.
Hisba, the Arm of the Authorities
A research paper issued by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information in June 2019 (before it announced last year that it was ceasing work in Egypt because of security restrictions), entitled “The New Hisba Enforcers… Religious, Moral and Patriotic Inquisitions”, pointed to the emergence of hisba enforcers in a new guise since 2013, having added other traits beyond those they were known for: they now outbid others in patriotism, morality and religion too, pursuing anyone who speaks in a way that contradicts their views.
According to a study prepared by writer Helmy El-Namnam and cited by the research paper, hisba is a position borrowed from the Byzantine state, like many administrative systems the Arabs borrowed from the Byzantines and Persians, as they had no previous experience in running states and, after the Arab conquests, had to resort to administrative systems drawn from the more experienced and modern surrounding states. Like all obsolete jobs and professions, the profession of hisba gradually faded until state agencies replaced it entirely. The term hisba reappeared at the beginning of the 21st century to describe those who put people under the microscope and pursue them in court to confiscate their freedom of thought and expression.
These lawyers rely in filing these complaints on Article 25 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which stipulates that “anyone who learns of the commission of a crime for which the Public Prosecution may file a case may report it to the prosecution or to one of the judicial police officers”.
In this context, human rights lawyer Aya Hamdy believes that what drives some lawyers to file complaints against citizens is their cultural and social backgrounds, not legal ones, and that they exploit their knowledge and practice of law to serve their own convictions, wielding the law as a sword over citizens’ necks to serve what they believe in, especially when the complaint is filed against a girl or a woman.
She explains that the authorities exploit these complaints to undermine women or specific people such as Douma, noting that if the same incident had involved a member of a pro-government party, the complaint would not have been acted on and investigated with the same speed.
Aya stresses that the authorities’ agencies exploit these complaints and use laws containing elastic, undefined phrases and accusations that have been objected to. She explains that if the authorities wanted to deter a specific crime, deterrence would require an explicit legal text, but drafting a text open to multiple interpretations in this way means that the authorities intend this, to make it easier to exploit these laws whenever they want.
In the same context, Court of Cassation lawyer Islam Abdel Meguid believes that there are public-interest lawyers, lawyers whose interests go beyond the usual concerns of lawyers linked to representing private interests; they sometimes take on cases in which they represent public interests, such as strategic litigation cases (choosing a particular case and bringing it before the court with the aim of bringing about wide-ranging change in society). There are generations of public-interest lawyers, and the pioneering generation is considered to be the leftist lawyers, foremost among them the late leftist human rights lawyer Ahmed Seif El-Islam; on the other hand, there are other lawyers who see the profession only within its professional framework.
He adds, speaking to us: “The complaint lawyers’ departure from the professional framework and rules denies them the status of public interest, and they could be called hisba lawyers; although this term does not exist in law, it is widespread and is considered a way of mocking these lawyers for their lack of professionalism. There are conservative bodies within the authorities that pick up these cases,” pointing to what happened recently with the TikTok girls and bloggers.
For her part, Elham Eidarous, agent of the founders of the Bread and Freedom Party (under formation), says: “In principle, I am not in favour of restricting the right to litigation, because this principle is sometimes used for the public good and the rights of society.” She points to the role of the Public Prosecution and the existence of freedom-restricting laws relied upon, both by those who file these complaints and by the justice system itself, to restrict citizens’ rights to freedom of thought and expression, such as legal texts on offending public decency, contempt of religion and family values.
She adds that the contempt of religion law was issued at the end of President Mohamed Anwar Sadat’s era under the pretext of protecting Christians from sectarian incitement, but in reality it was used to restrict freedom of thought and expression and to protect the authorities’ and official institutions’ conception of protecting Islam, as it was used for years against critics of Islam and only recently began to be used against critics of Christianity.
Elham believes that “there is a need to purge the Penal Code of all articles restricting freedom and expression, such as the texts I mentioned. What our legislative system needs are laws that define and punish so-called speech crimes that directly threaten citizens’ lives, such as incitement to violence against a group or individuals, not those that threaten ideas, criticism of which falls within the framework of freedom of opinion and expression”, noting that thousands of complaints are filed daily and that the authorities show interest in the complaints that suit them.
The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression stated in a paper entitled “Targeting Creators… Between the Syndicate and the Prosecution”, published in December 2017, that censorship instructions on artistic works emerged decades ago with the appearance, shortly before the Urabi revolution, of artistic works praising Ahmed Urabi; the authorities at the time responded by imposing censorship restrictions, which did not include “public decency”, focusing only on maintaining security and order.
In 1946, these restrictions developed after an uprising, and new censorship instructions appeared in 1947, banning any criticism of the political regime as a whole and all its loyalists; these instructions also did not mention public decency, positively or negatively, except to state that “in filming cabarets, care must be taken that they are not dirty”.
