Italy carried out its first direct deportation from the Gjad\u00ebr detention centre in Albania on 9 May 2025, flying five Egyptians to Cairo via Tirana. Refugees Platform in Egypt reported that Italy\u2019s Interior Ministry issued a 28 April tender for a deportation aircraft stopping in Tirana. A EUR 113,850 private-company contract was signed on 8 May and carried out the next day. Altreconomia recorded five Egyptians\u2019 passages through Gjad\u00ebr between 11 April and 21 May, the people deported on that flight.<\/p>\n
The platform\u2019s statement<\/a> linked this to EU policies designating non-EU countries such as Albania safe. The European Commission proposes ten additions including Egypt, disregarding rights records and ongoing violations against citizens and refugees. It warned that transfers to countries lacking minimum protection jeopardise physical safety and liberty.<\/p>\n Media reports<\/a> described more Sudanese refugees leaving Egypt irregularly for Libya and Europe to escape restrictions. Reuters reported growing economic difficulties, residence and document fees, detention and forced deportation for people fleeing Sudan\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n Egypt faced rights criticism<\/a> for residence and registration restrictions and weak response to arrivals. Sudanese refugees reported discrimination and poor access to health, education and jobs. Organisations warned of rising irregular movement, trafficking and exploitation.<\/p>\n At a European Parliament human rights subcommittee hearing on the EU-Egypt partnership, Refugees Platform director Nour Khalil accused authorities of collecting thousands of euros per person fleeing Sudan, Gaza or Syria through private companies tied to security agencies, alongside arrests and deportation often to conflict zones. He described mass raids in Cairo, Aswan and elsewhere, confiscated UNHCR documents, coerced voluntary-return forms, separated children and rapid deportation and abuse of LGBTQ+ refugees.<\/p>\n He said Egypt was a trap rather than a safe haven, particularly for Sudanese, Eritrean, Yemeni, Palestinian and Syrian people. The platform documented over twenty thousand deportations to Sudan in 2024. Recent policies deny health, education and justice, fewer than 12% of refugee children receive schooling, and the unconsulted new asylum law grants broad arbitrary refusal and deportation powers, undoing decades of safeguards.<\/p>\n In his address<\/a>, he said border militarisation displaced local people and created lethal risks in Matrouh and North Sinai. Egyptian and foreign migrants face arrest, torture, violence and sometimes death. Authorities reported one hundred thousand border detentions from 2016 to 2021.<\/p>\n On 10 June, ten migrant bodies, including eight Egyptians, were found at Baq Baq beach in Sidi Barrani west of Marsa Matrouh, believed to have come from Libya on Mediterranean journeys.<\/p>\n IOM called it a grim reminder of irregular migration\u2019s cost and sought urgent safe regular pathways, warning of over 32,000 Mediterranean deaths since 2014.<\/p>\n International and European figures show continued increases in Egyptian migration contrary to official success claims. Over 21,700 Egyptians crossed irregularly to Europe in 2022, placing Egypt among the top ten origin countries according to Frontex and Italy\u2019s Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n The government says it eliminated departures. In April, Foreign and Migration Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt ended irregular migration from its shores while welcoming people fleeing crises and wars.<\/p>\n In joint dialogue with the European Commission involving Planning Minister Rania El-Mashat, the government said no irregular boats had departed for nearly eight years and cited youth awareness and safe migration programmes.<\/p>\n In a September meeting with European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, Cairo affirmed coordination under its 2016\u20132026 strategy. Law No. 82 of 2016 strengthened smuggling penalties, amended in 2022, with a national fund established by a 2023 prime ministerial decision.<\/p>\n EU-Egypt relations are central to Mediterranean migration management. A March 2024 EUR 7.4 billion agreement comprises loans, investments and grants, including EUR 200 million for migration and borders, surveillance equipment, drones and coastguard and border training. Formal and informal information-sharing with Frontex and Europol seeks to block routes but faces rights criticism.<\/p>\n Refugees Platform consultant Halim Heneish told Zawia3 that irregular migration never stopped, driven by political and economic conditions. The environment pushes away young people of intermediate and university education, including doctors and engineers seeking jobs abroad immediately after graduation.<\/p>\n He called migration an expression of lost hope amid economic collapse. Since around 2017, militarised coasts and fishing areas and intensive security changed routes rather than ending departures. Most now leave by sea from unstable Libya, increasing danger. Reports of Egyptians held in warehouses awaiting smuggling show security deterrence alone cannot remove political and economic causes.<\/p>\n Zawia3 testimonies and official reports confirm thousands still migrate through Libya, driven by poverty and closed prospects, questioning security solutions to deeper crises.<\/p>\n Read the full report: Irregular Migration from Egypt: Government Efforts Only Changed the Route<\/a><\/p>\n The board unanimously announced a nationwide strike in all courts and prosecution offices on Sunday and Monday, 7 and 8 July 2025, against recently adopted unfair court fees without legal or factual justification.<\/p>\n After meeting local heads, it said an internal survey of 36,284 lawyers showed 21,231 supporting a strike and only 1,486 opposing, reflecting widespread anger against arbitrary charges.<\/p>\n Tensions increased after the Supreme Administrative Court cancelled the association\u2019s general assembly, provoking rejection as interference in internal affairs and self-organisation.<\/p>\n Zawia3\u2019s earlier reports tracked discontent and escalating steps informed by membership surveys.<\/p>\n The board said fees burden lawyers and litigants and threaten access to justice, seeking institutional dialogue and review respecting law and all parties.<\/p>\n Recommended reading: Twenty-One Thousand Lawyers Vote to Abstain from Court Attendance over Judicial Fees<\/a><\/p>\n EIPR complained to Public Prosecutor Mohamed Shawky, seeking urgent transparent investigation of seven detention deaths within one year.<\/p>\n Its complaint<\/a> sought temporary suspension of officers and criminal trial for responsibility or negligence. All cases were documented in 2023\u20132024, raising legitimate concerns amid opacity and weak oversight.<\/p>\n It renewed demands for an unannounced prosecution visit, detention and treatment records and testimony from families and current and former detainees.<\/p>\n Failure to investigate breaches legal and criminal responsibilities and permits systematic constitutional and international violations to continue.<\/p>\n Months after Mahmoud Mohamed Asaad, known as Mahmoud Mika, died, his family and lawyers still cannot access the final forensic report.<\/p>\n Rights organisations launched a public petition<\/a> urging an official invitation to the UN torture rapporteur to inspect detention and meet victims and families as a first transparency and accountability step.<\/p>\n It stressed independent international mechanisms amid escalating violations and stalled domestic justice, demanding urgent independent investigation, full forensic disclosure, witness protection, accountability regardless of office and public findings. Impunity undermines justice-system confidence as well as victims\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n His cousin and defence lawyer Esraa Khalifa sent Zawia3 a May video<\/a> appealing to the president, Public Prosecutor and Justice Minister for urgent release of the medical report to establish accountability and truth.<\/p>\n Recommended reading: Torture Marks and Suspension by the Hands: Details of Mahmoud Asaad\u2019s Death at El-Khalifa<\/a><\/p>\n On Saturday, 28 June, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Interior Ministry announced discretionary executions of four people, including three Egyptians, in drug cases. Six Egyptians were executed between 25 and 28 June, renewing concerns for foreign death-row prisoners.<\/p>\n International reports indicate plans to execute twenty-six more Egyptians in Tabuk Prison on similar nonlethal charges.<\/p>\n Thirty-two international rights groups\u2019 joint statement<\/a> demanded a formal moratorium towards abolition, especially for offences without grave violence or threats to life.<\/p>\n They described systematic arrest, detention and trial violations of defence and fair-trial rights.<\/p>\n They voiced grave concern over imminent danger to hundreds convicted in drug cases, including Egyptians, Ethiopians and Somalis.<\/p>\n On 2 June 2025, State Security Prosecution released fifty pretrial detainees in 23 cases, including journalist Ahmed Serag. Arrested at work in January, he appeared the same day as academic and translator Nada Moghith was summoned. Her husband, cartoonist and translator Ashraf Omar, has been held since July 2024 in Case 1968 of 2024. Serag\u2019s filmed interview about Omar\u2019s arrest and 10th of Ramadan Prison (6) conditions formed the prosecution\u2019s basis.<\/p>\n Twenty-four Egyptian, African and international organisations expressed concern for Ibrahim Metwally, 61, arbitrarily held since 10 September 2017 without trial for defending disappearance victims, including his son missing since 2013.<\/p>\n Their statement<\/a> said he was recently referred in three separate terrorism cases despite detention\u2019s direct connection to founding the families\u2019 association and documenting violations.<\/p>\n They demanded release, an end to harassment, appropriate outside medical treatment, transparent torture investigation and respect for defenders\u2019 and lawyers\u2019 work without retaliation.<\/p>\n On 24 June, Badr\u2019s Second Terrorism State Security Criminal Circuit sentenced former Tanta University student leader Moaz El-Sharqawy to ten years\u2019 rigorous imprisonment alongside nineteen others in El-Marg Criminal Case No. 13330 of 2023. Some received life; he was terrorism-listed and given five years\u2019 police supervision after prison.<\/p>\n EIPR, providing defence, condemned continued prosecutions since 2018: this is his second ten-year sentence, while a third similar case, Supreme State Security No. 540 of 2023, begins on 5 July.<\/p>\n EIPR\u2019s account<\/a> traces an April 2018 arrest while organising tourist trips on the Sharm El-Sheikh road, followed by 25 days\u2019 disappearance and reported torture before Case No. 440 of 2018.<\/p>\n Released in 2020, he was referred in August 2021 to Emergency State Security Court, receiving an unappealable ten-year sentence in Case No. 1059 of 2021, unenforced pending ratification. Rearrested at home in Mokattam on 11 May 2023, he disappeared over three weeks until 3 June questioning in Case 540 without counsel or defence file access.<\/p>\n EIPR said a May 2025 referral in the newly sentenced case came without questioning, prosecutors calling him a fugitive despite Interior Ministry custody since May 2023 and merely copying testimony from Case 540.<\/p>\n On Sunday, 1 June 2025, State Security Prosecution renewed filmmaker Abdel Rahman Adel Seddiq Hassan El-Qased\u2019s detention, known as Abdel Rahman El-Ansary, in Case No. 1282 of 2024 for terrorist membership, false news and social-media misuse.<\/p>\n Plainclothes forces arrested him outside home before dawn on 7 May and took him to an unknown location until next-day appearance and later transfer to Wadi El-Natrun. His previous detention in Case No. 441 of 2018 exceeded eighteen months on nearly identical charges.<\/p>\n Local and international groups expressed concern over targeting of exiled journalists, especially Germany-based investigative journalist Basma Mostafa.<\/p>\n Their joint statement<\/a> demanded immediate cessation and response to a UN report documenting harassment, surveillance and violations in Germany, Switzerland, Kenya and Lebanon. They urged German protection consistent with expression and human rights obligations.<\/p>\n Despite leaving Egypt for safety, Mostafa continues systematic threats, monitoring and gender-based online violence because of investigative reporting on Egypt.<\/p>\n Former German human rights commissioner Luise Amtsberg publicly condemned violations and sought Cairo\u2019s response, still absent.<\/p>\n In June, government announced<\/a> a public administrative workforce minimum of EGP 7,000 monthly from July to ease living costs, alongside temporary social assistance through June intended to contain discontent.<\/p>\n Despite theoretical significance, rights reports<\/a> show widespread private-sector noncompliance without monitoring or deterrent sanctions. ILO and other studies show millions in informal work lack actual protection, while wages fail to keep pace with inflation.<\/p>\n Six rights and research organisations and housing lawyers issued legislative proposals following November 2024\u2019s Supreme Constitutional Court ruling against fixed rents. They drew on dialogue, accumulated housing knowledge and current government proposals and parliamentary debate with owners, tenants and experts.<\/p>\n The proposed approach<\/a> has four pillars: fair treatment of existing contracts reflecting parties\u2019 circumstances; fair, gradual legally prescribed rises rather than current-market linkage with a suitable transition; direct support preventing economic eviction of vulnerable households; and comprehensive old and new rental reform correcting market imbalances and promoting justice.<\/p>\n Amendments must comply with constitutional housing and social protection guarantees and established contract and property principles.<\/p>\n Recommended reading: Do Six Million Citizens Face Eviction? The Other Side of Old Rent Amendments<\/a><\/p>\n MP and Egyptian Social Democratic Party deputy chair Freddy El-Bayady proposed a complete alternative founded on seven-year gradual liberalisation towards fair market rent, tenants paying no more than a third of income with the state covering the difference through social housing or property taxes, and no forced eviction of occupying residents.<\/p>\n It replaces automatic eviction after five or seven years with neutral committee valuations and gradual increases over seven years, reviewed every two for inflation. Local committees assess each unit\u2019s location, condition, use, demand, facilities and market prices instead of broad area categories. Nonresidential units receive similar progression accounting for activities. Eviction grounds are limited to unjustified closure over a year, suitable alternative ownership, nonpayment, damage, subletting or changed use, with judicial appeal and interim suspension pending final judgment where justified. Tenants temporarily contribute to major maintenance, beginning at 80% and declining to zero by year seven. Low-income tenants receive monthly rent-gap support or an equivalent suitable rental or owned home actually delivered before eviction.<\/p>\n El-Bayady told Zawia3 neither citizens nor owners should bear reform alone. State participation implements constitutional Article 78\u2019s safe adequate housing rights. Reform must be gradual, realistic and participatory, safeguarding dignity and ownership without displacement or improvised shocks. He rejected the government bill as unfair during severe economic strain and based on obsolete 2017 data.<\/p>\n He cited unsuitable timing, eight-year-old statistics, mandatory eviction and no clear fair market-rent pathway for owners. Dividing all Egypt into premium, medium and economic categories ignores vast neighbourhood, street and building differences.<\/p>\n Financial and administrative allegations against management involve assaults on patients, doctor impersonation and unauthorised medical reports violating mental health law. The Mental Health Secretariat dismissed deputy director Dr Badr Abbas on 9 April, less than two months after appointment.<\/p>\n Local newspapers alleged Abbas assaulted patient \u201cF. H.,\u201d registry 8013, diagnosed with schizophrenia and intellectual impairment, after an unwitting departure attempt during March visits. The director did not refer the incident for administrative investigation.<\/p>\n Abbas also introduced Mohamed Bakr as a newly transferred psychiatrist and requested evaluation of patient \u201cH. A. H.,\u201d registry 16487, agitated on 16 March during a round with Qalyubia\u2019s health undersecretary. Doctors questioned his notes and discussion, requested identity checks and discovered a student born in January 1996 impersonating a physician.<\/p>\n On 16 April, the National Mental Health Council sent a patient-affairs investigation committee. Internal inquiry and dismissal without prosecution referral drew criticism as undermining accountability and patient rights.<\/p>\n In May, director Dr Mostafa Khalil El-Sherif, appointed in February, was summoned for investigation. Local reports cited mismanagement, drug-use allegations and attendance signatures on behalf of his absent wife, also employed there.<\/p>\n On 8 May, the secretariat announced Professor Menen Abdel Maqsoud\u2019s resignation from the secretary-general position held since 17 October 2017, praising her programme development, partnerships, research and workforce training.<\/p>\n On 9 May, Dr Wesam Abu El-Fotouh became central administration head for mental health and addiction. Official information describes a specialist involved in addiction and patient interests, psychological support and hotline supervision, former Benha addiction department head from 2013\u20132018 and patient rights committee chair from 2011\u20132018.<\/p>\n On 10 February, a patient escaped between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. during an electricity outage. Admitted on 13 January for schizophrenia with intellectual impairment, his case was reported by media citing secretariat sources.<\/p>\n Read Zawia3\u2019s report: El-Khanka Hospital: Beaten Patients, Fake Doctors and Administrative Corruption<\/a><\/p>\n A tragic Menoufia crash<\/a> on the morning of 27 May killed eighteen young women and injured others travelling to Sadat City grape farms. Official condolences and compensation contrasted with EIPR\u2019s attribution to structural and legal neglect threatening thousands and ignored safe-work rights.<\/p>\n Online testimonies<\/a> and press accounts described victims mostly aged fourteen to twenty, daily-paid no more than EGP 130, below the hourly equivalent minimum. A dilapidated microbus carried 22 despite a fifteen-passenger limit from El-Sandabisa, Ashmoun, around sixty kilometres to Sadat City before a heavy truck struck on the regional road.<\/p>\n Egyptian Social Democratic MP Sanaa El-Saeed called it a catastrophe and a fully constituted crime, holding government responsible. She offered condolences and said accumulated crises exceed a traffic accident.<\/p>\n Residents call it the road of death. She questioned officials\u2019 neglect of recurring hazards as deliberate inaction, asking whether catastrophe must precede response. The girls worked to support families or education in difficult circumstances.<\/p>\n She described a broad irregular workforce labouring without insurance, documented contracts or protection for EGP 130, conditions akin to forced labour requiring state action.<\/p>\n She contrasted neglected provincial roads with billions borrowed and spent on the New Administrative Capital and El-Alamein, while young people die. She urged protection and dignified lives rather than poverty and neglect.<\/p>\n EIPR expressed<\/a> grief and solidarity while warning against sympathy without structural remedies. The new Labour Law included agricultural workers for the first time, weeks after presidential ratification, but without genuine protection mechanisms.<\/p>\n The change followed repeated civil society, labour, feminist and UN demands for all work to be covered, although domestic workers remain excluded. EIPR described formal inclusion without safeguards matching farmworkers\u2019 conditions.<\/p>\n The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights\u2019 statement<\/a> mourned victims and described millions forced into unsafe transport.<\/p>\n It saw institutional neglect and absent road oversight, with the regional road becoming a recurring danger instead of a safety improvement.<\/p>\n It cited similar deaths in Minya, Sadat and Abu Ghalib as a pattern against vulnerable workers.<\/p>\n Symbolic compensation cannot equal loss. The centre held transport authorities responsible and sought safe vehicles and minimum occupational health and safety.<\/p>\n Irregular workers remain without social protection or job security and exposed to constant risk.<\/p>\n Tadwein\u2019s statement<\/a> linked the tragedy to repeated child labour and neglect. On 21 May 2024, seventeen girls aged twelve to sixteen travelled before dawn from Giza to fruit-picking work in an old microbus crossing the unsafe Abu Ghalib ferry. It collapsed and most drowned.<\/p>\n In early 2022, children from Manshiyet El-Qanater worked poultry shifts from before dawn to sunset for EGP 50\u201370 without safe employer transport. A pickup carrying 23 fell from El-Qatta ferry, drowning most. During Ramadan 2022, children aged ten to fifteen returning at dawn from a Beheira potato facility used a tricycle across a canal towards Etay El-Baroud, five kilometres away; eight drowned when it overturned.<\/p>\n The 2021 Egypt Family Health Survey found at least nine hundred thousand working children, around half in hazardous farming, factory, workshop and transport jobs. Despite child-employment restrictions and hazardous-work bans under eighteen, violations continue openly.<\/p>\n Recommended reading: The Deadly Harvest: Egypt\u2019s Agricultural Child Workers as Victims of Labour Brokers and Legislation<\/a><\/p>\nBar Association Announces a General Strike<\/h2>\n
Seven Deaths at El-Omraniya Police Station in One Year<\/h2>\n
A Petition to Investigate Mahmoud Mika\u2019s Death at El-Khalifa<\/h2>\n
Six Egyptians Executed in Saudi Arabia; Twenty-Six Face the Same Fate<\/h2>\n
Fifty Defendants Released in Various Cases<\/h2>\n
Rights Organisations Demand Lawyer Ibrahim Metwally\u2019s Release<\/h2>\n
A Second Sentence for Former Student Leader Moaz El-Sharqawy<\/h2>\n
Cinema Syndicate Member\u2019s Detention Renewed<\/h2>\n
Rights Groups Urge an End to Transnational Repression<\/h2>\n
Minimum Wage Increase<\/h2>\n
Proposals to Reform the Old Rent Law<\/h2>\n
An Alternative to the Government\u2019s Old Rent Bill<\/h2>\n
Grave Violations at El-Khanka Psychiatric Hospital<\/h2>\n
Precarious Conditions for Women Agricultural Workers<\/h2>\n
Egypt Falls in the Global Gender Gap Index<\/h2>\n