{"id":18410,"date":"2024-10-02T12:45:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T10:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=18410"},"modified":"2026-10-08T23:57:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T21:57:35","slug":"repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/repression\/","title":{"rendered":"Exile… A New Arena for Repressing Human Rights Defenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Activists, journalists and human rights defenders whom security pursuit and the authorities’ practices in Egypt forced out of the country have not been spared from targeting after deciding to leave. Egyptian state agencies subject them to restrictions and security pursuit, regardless of their current countries of residence. A recent joint report<\/a> issued by the Egyptian Human Rights Forum and the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, a copy of which Zawia3 obtained, documented the practices the Egyptian authorities have activated against them, which centred on “issuing prison sentences in absentia, or investigating and bringing charges against some of them in political cases relating to the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, as well as arbitrary denial of consular services by blocking the issuance of national ID cards and birth certificates for them and their relatives, and the issuance and renewal of Egyptian passports”.<\/p>\n

The practices also included freezing the civil registry status of some prominent rights advocates inside the country to deprive them of their identity documents, placing some human rights defenders living outside Egypt on terrorism lists, and intimidating family members living inside the country, in addition to tracking and monitoring rights advocates’ activities in their countries of residence, and the digital targeting of activists and their organisations through surveillance and spyware.<\/p>\n

According to estimates by specialists and human rights organisations, Cairo has since mid-2013 witnessed unprecedented waves of arrests and detention of citizens, especially those engaged in public affairs and the defence of human rights and public freedoms, with estimates indicating that between 40,000 and 60,000 political detainees are held in the regime’s prisons, which the authorities have repeatedly denied. This has made political detainees a file in its own right, which human rights organisations and some political parties at home and abroad are seeking to resolve.<\/p>\n

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The authorities had stepped up their campaigns to arrest activists, rights advocates and journalists from mid-2013, coinciding with the fall of President Mohamed Morsi’s rule. However, in 2016 the authorities tried to present a good image, announcing the release of about 165 male and female detainees who had been held over the Tiran and Sanafir protests against the deal to sell the two islands, and then tried to engage directly with the file through recommendations<\/a> issued by the first youth conference in 2016, announcing the signing of a decision pardoning 330 detainees, according to a list submitted by members of the National Council for Human Rights at the time, followed by the announcement of the formation of a presidential pardon committee to help the President activate and sustain this mechanism. But the presidential release decision for the 330 detainees was not actually implemented until 2018.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In this context, about 50 civil society organisations, parties, groups of Egyptians at home and abroad, and regional and international human rights bodies launched what became known in 2021 as the “First Seven Steps” initiative. According to a statement issued by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights<\/a> in May 2022, policies had proved their failure in activating the role of the presidential pardon committee since 2016 to end the file of political detainees in Egypt, especially with the activation of what human rights organisations described as the “revolving door” approach, or recycling detainees into new cases instead of releasing them, at a time when the authorities pursued their practice, which continues, of releasing some detainees while arresting new ones. As neither the pardon committee nor the personal efforts of some politicians and rights advocates managed to secure the release of thousands of detainees, their families grew frustrated, and last July they launched a campaign entitled “We Want Our Loved Ones Free<\/a>” to appeal to the relevant agencies to release their relatives.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> We Want Our Loved Ones Free: An Initiative by Families of Political Prisoners in Egypt<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the regime expanded its campaigns and violations, despite announcing the formation of the presidential pardon committee and continually denying the existence of detainees in its prisons. These developments pushed human rights defenders to document ongoing violations against citizens and to try, through their work, to improve the conditions of detainees and those whose rights were violated, or to secure their release, using media and journalistic tools, as security forces expanded violations of individuals’ personal and physical safety and the physical abuse and torture that accompany detention. This galvanised the authorities against this group, leading to their subsequent pursuit through restrictive laws, their inclusion in long-running cases, or the arrest of some of them in a number of cases.<\/p>\n

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The authorities issued Law<\/a> No. 70 of 2017 regulating the work of civil associations, which was considered a law restricting public work and civil society organisations in Egypt and drew criticism from local and international civil society organisations; this criticism resulted in its amendment by Law<\/a> No. 149 of 2019. That period also saw the reactivation of what became known as the foreign funding case, which affected a number of human rights organisations and their leaders, followed by measures such as restricting these associations’ opportunities to obtain the funding needed to carry out their work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> Aida Seif El-Dawla: Testimonies from the Heart of the Struggle Against Torture (Interview)<\/a><\/p>\n

Commenting, Moataz El-Fegiery, founder and member of the Egyptian Human Rights Forum, tells Zawia3 that the conflict and attempts to fabricate cases actually began in the first months after the departure of former President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, after the January 2011 revolution forced him out. He adds: “At that time, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the current President of Egypt, was head of Military Intelligence. Preparations for the foreign funding case began at the end of 2011, but it was moved against a wide range of Egyptian organisations starting in 2014.”<\/p>\n

He continues: “The repression of rights advocates is not limited to the civil society organisations\/foreign funding case; many patterns of violations rely on many and varied laws, and some are outside the framework of the law altogether.”<\/p>\n

According to the report by the Egyptian Human Rights Forum and the Egyptian Front for Human Rights, the authorities have committed a number of other violations against this group besides the foreign funding case and legal restrictions. According to testimonies in the report, “some of them were subjected to sudden stops while travelling inside or outside the country, followed by notification that they were banned from travel, unlawfully in most cases, and the confiscation of travel documents to ensure they did not leave the country, in addition to the detention of some in unknown National Security facilities without clarification of the nature of the charges against them.” The authors noted that the authorities activated precautionary measures against those released, requiring them to report regularly to the police station about three times a month, or summoning them suddenly to be questioned about current political events; they may suddenly be transferred to National Security facilities for renewed interrogation in extremely harsh conditions of detention and interrogation, then released blindfolded in the desert and on the outskirts of the city at night.<\/p>\n

Human rights defenders were also subjected to threats regarding housing, as they and their families were pursued, which forced many of them to flee or move from their homes, while others who had not been detained grew anxious after being asked about in ongoing investigations, meaning they might be on the target list.<\/p>\n

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How Did They Leave Egypt?<\/h3>\n

Some of the testimonies in the aforementioned report said they were abroad for fellowships or academic training, but were surprised by moves threatening their personal safety should they consider returning to Egypt, so they decided to stay outside the country. In some cases, because of official travel bans or unannounced National Security travel ban lists at airports, some resorted to travelling irregularly via border routes shared with Egypt’s neighbouring countries. They “actually resorted to journeys organised by elements who arrange these dangerous cross-border journeys, mainly for refugees on both sides, departing through uninhabited desert routes, with those responsible for the journey warning the defenders that there was a high likelihood of death on this journey”.<\/p>\n

According to their testimonies, they left Cairo without official papers or enough money, due to the sudden arrangements made before they could be arrested or pursued, and for fear that the authorities in Egypt would notice if they applied for their papers and would stop them.<\/p>\n

According to El-Fegiery, some rights advocates have faced enormous suffering since leaving Egypt. Some moved repeatedly between several countries and remained unsettled for years until they managed to reach European or other countries that granted them asylum. He added: “There is no count of the number of rights advocates or activists who have reached Europe, but through monitoring we know their numbers are increasing in countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Qatar. Waves of departure from Egypt are still continuing, though at a lower rate now, since most of those threatened from this group have already left in previous years.”<\/p>\n

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Pursuit Abroad<\/h3>\n

According to the report, the first tool the regime uses against human rights defenders who have left Egypt is to bring new cases, or revive cases in which they had been released, once they leave the airport, leaving them with two options: either remain in the forced exile the authorities have imposed on them, in most cases without their families, or return and spend an unknown number of years in the depths of prison. Some were placed in political or terrorism-related cases after their departure, resulting in their being placed on watch lists at airports and all border crossings, stripped of civil and political rights, and having their property, funds and assets confiscated; these measures may remain in effect for about five years, renewable.<\/p>\n

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Last year, an Egyptian court issued a decision extending the inclusion of 1,526 Egyptians on terrorism lists for an additional five years (the list includes political activists and rights advocates), which the Cairo Institute<\/a> for Human Rights Studies considered “a continued use of counterterrorism laws to strip Egyptians of their rights, including the right to freedom of travel and movement and the freedom to dispose of funds and property, as well as confiscating their political rights and stigmatising them socially”. 81 Egyptians, including rights advocates and political activists, were also added to terrorism lists in April 2023, and former MP Ziad El-Elaimy and activist Ramy Shaath had previously been added to terrorism lists in April 2020. In November 2020, political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and human rights lawyer Mohamed El-Baqer were added to the same lists, and in September 2021, rights advocate Hoda Abdelmoniem, a member of the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, was added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another tool the authorities use to pursue human rights defenders abroad is denying them official and identity documents (birth certificates or renewal of basic documents such as passports and ID cards), according to a statement issued by Human Rights Watch<\/a> in March last year, 2023, which leads to their being deprived of other basic rights such as health care, education and work, the right to family life, freedom of movement and the right to leave the country.<\/p>\n

To this end, Egyptian diplomatic missions deliberately stall this group’s efforts to obtain their papers, especially since Egyptian law sets a time limit for receiving applications for official documents. In this context, consular offices work to restrict the possibility of obtaining documents by delaying papers and eventually informing applicants of the need to submit new applications (which may take months, a year or more). According to activists’ testimonies, this is done on the instructions of the security agencies, with the final response being that the security inquiry ended in rejection, and their papers are not issued. When some tried to authorise a relative in Egypt to obtain these papers, they were surprised to find their names frozen by the Egyptian administration, meaning their transactions inside the country were also halted (we documented cases of Egyptian journalists whose applications were rejected by some embassies in the countries they had fled to, such as Turkey and Lebanon).<\/p>\n

In addition, the Egyptian authorities have stripped some activists and politicians abroad of their citizenship, with revocation decisions citing claims such as “threatening the state’s external security and undermining its social and economic order”, without specifying or explaining the reasons. Decisions such as stripping opposition citizens and defenders of their citizenship are expected to render them stateless, making it difficult for them to regularise their legal status in other countries.<\/p>\n

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In 2017, the Egyptian parliament approved amendments to the citizenship revocation law<\/a>, which provided for “withdrawing Egyptian citizenship from those who acquired it through fraud or on the basis of false statements, those against whom court rulings have been issued proving that they joined any group, association, body, organisation, gang or entity aiming to harm the state’s public order or undermine the social, economic or political order by force or other illegitimate means, those convicted by a court of a crime harmful to state security from abroad or at home, those who performed military service for a foreign state without a permit from the authorities, and those who work with a foreign state or government at war with Egypt”. Egyptian parties and human rights bodies objected to the amendments, describing them as vague and a means of repressing opponents and closing the public sphere, as Zawia3 previously documented in the case of politician and human rights defender Mostafa Mohamed Bakry<\/a>, whose Egyptian citizenship the authorities revoked this year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> Is Egyptian Citizenship Becoming a Political Tool to Suppress the Opposition?<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2020, Amnesty International<\/a> issued a statement protesting the stripping of the Egyptian citizenship of Egyptian activist Ghada Naguib, who lives in Turkey, describing it as “an arbitrary deprivation of nationality; the measure reveals the Egyptian authorities’ use of a new tactic against opponents and human rights defenders to silence their voices at home and abroad”.<\/p>\n

El-Fegiery returns to comment. He says: “The activity of the human rights movement abroad and its success in forming a cross-border front and keeping the human rights file present internationally, especially during the Universal Periodic Review in 2019 (the report on the state of human rights in the country before the United Nations), and up to the election of US President Joe Biden and the first years of his administration, all contributed to rising waves of threats against and pursuit of activists abroad. The regime’s most dangerous tool was denying identity documents and consular services, an arbitrary tool that represents a flagrant violation of citizenship rights.” He noted that the authorities aim through these practices to restrict rights advocates’ freedom of movement and force them to seek asylum, paving the way to prevent their return to their homeland, Egypt, and perhaps to make them give up their Egyptian citizenship.<\/p>\n

He adds: “There is international coordination to provide support and protection to those forced to leave Egypt, but the inflamed regional situation and the growing influence of the European far right are obstructing these efforts. Some activists are actually living in unstable and unsafe countries, and we fear for their safety. Through our joint report, we hope to draw attention to the cases of activists abroad and to the announcement of an official initiative to settle pending cases, as well as the need to facilitate the immediate issuance of their identity documents and passports, regardless of the political orientations of Egyptians abroad.” He stressed that the authorities in Egypt are doing the opposite of what they have claimed since the launch of the National Dialogue, citing the increase in recent months in cases of detention and arrest of journalists, and then the attempt to pass the proposed Criminal Procedure Law, which amounts to contempt for the participants in the National Dialogue and reflects the continued control of the security agencies over the political scene and the blocking of any possible opening.<\/p>\n

Recommended reading:<\/strong> The New Draft Criminal Procedure Law: A Step Towards Justice or a Restriction of Freedoms?<\/a><\/p>\n

Among the additional means the Egyptian authorities use to suppress Egyptian opponents and rights advocates abroad is tracking them on their journeys and in their places of residence abroad. According to the report, defenders’ and activists’ testimonies stated that “monitoring and tracking efforts are not limited to events related to the human rights situation in Egypt that these defenders are active in organising, nor to them personally; they extend to their non-Egyptian colleagues working on Egyptian human rights files in the same institution, to learn about their work activities and spy on the Egyptian defenders through them”. It was also reported that unknown Egyptians frequented the offices of human rights institutions abroad, asking questions about reports published on Egypt and trying to identify their authors, in Western capitals and the capitals of Middle Eastern countries.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Egyptian authorities intimidate opponents and rights advocates abroad through cooperation with the authorities of other friendly countries. Cases have indeed been recorded of opponents and human rights defenders being deported to Egypt in cooperation with countries with which Cairo has resumed diplomatic relations, such as Turkey. Similar cases have appeared in Bahrain, based on extradition requests submitted by Egypt to the Bahraini side claiming they were wanted in political cases. In the case of the UAE<\/a>, Egyptian opponents were arrested without adherence to legal procedures, with threats of deportation to Egypt without stated reasons, such as the case of Egyptian politician and blogger Sherif Osman, whom the Emirati authorities detained in 2022.<\/p>\n

The authorities in Egypt have not stopped at these measures, expanding their exploitation of technology to target and monitor opponents through the digital targeting of Egyptian defenders abroad, as tracking them gains importance for the authorities given that they remain outside Egypt and that it is not possible to access updated information about their work and activities. Many of them have been subjected to continuous hacking attempts, which places additional burdens on them to protect their privacy. For this reason, according to testimonies from human rights defenders abroad, they activate digital advocacy groups to strengthen the personal protection of themselves and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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