Abdelfattah has spent nearly a decade in prison and now faces an additional two years of detention—despite Egyptian legal provisions that should have guaranteed his release last September. On May 20, the journalist’s 69-year-old mother, Laila Soueif, resumed a near-total hunger strike in protest.

On March 4, CPJ led a joint letter signed by 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel laureates, writers, and public figures, urging President el-Sisi to issue a presidential pardon for Abdelfattah.

Read the full letter in English here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The letter highlights the urgency of Abdelfattah’s case as he began a hunger strike in prison on March 1, 2025. His 69-year-old mother, Laila Soueif—a respected Egyptian professor—conducted a hunger strike for more than 150 days, which led to severe health deterioration and hospitalization. 

On March 4, CPJ led another joint letter, signed by 50 prominent human rights leaders, Nobel Prize laureates, writers, and public figures, calling on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to grant a presidential pardon to Abd El Fattah.

Read the full letter in here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The appeal, submitted by Abdelfattah and his family, was supported by a letter from CPJ and other organizations on November 23. It called on the UNWGAD to review his case and issue a formal opinion on whether his detention is arbitrary and violates international law.

Abdelfattah was first arrested in September 2019 during a crackdown on protests demanding President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s resignation. He was later sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news and anti-state activities. Although Abdelfattah was scheduled for release in September 2024, Egyptian authorities unlawfully extended his detention until January 2027, in violation of Articles 482 and 484 of Egypt’s Criminal Procedure Law.

CPJ has previously called on the Egyptian government to release Abdelfattah, drop all remaining charges, and stop abusing legal provisions to unjustly prolong his imprisonment. Additionally, CPJ joined others in urging U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy to suspend all economic and financial partnerships with Egypt until the country frees Abdelfattah.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The statement also urged Egypt’s international partners to raise Abdelfattah’s case with their counterparts and press for his immediate release.

Alaa Abd el-Fattah was arrested in September 2019 amid a government crackdown on protests demanding that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi resign. Abdelfattah had posted about the protests and arrests on Facebook. In December 2021, he was sentenced to five years in prison on anti-state and false news charges.

On Tuesday, CPJ separately called on the Egyptian government to release Alaa, drop all remaining charges against him, and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison him.

Read the full statement in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

“After serving his five-year sentence, Egyptian-British blogger Alaa Abdelfattah must be released immediately, and all remaining charges against him must be dropped. He deserves to be reunited with his son and family,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim MENA program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “The Egyptian authorities must uphold their own laws and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison Abdelfattah. It is a profound disgrace for Egypt to silence such a vital voice of conscience behind bars.”

Abdelfattah’s family and his campaign for release wrote on social media platform X, “We hope that the law will be respected and Alaa will be freed and reunited with his son, Khaled.”

However, Abdelfattah’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, told the independent media outlet Al-Manassa that Abdelfattah is “being subjected to abuse, oppression, and manipulation of legal texts.” Ali said prosecutors calculated the start of the sentence from the date it was ratified on January 3, 2022 — not from the date of his arrest — which means Abdelfattah’s release date is now set for January 2027.

Egyptian authorities’ failure to release Abdelfattah by September 29 would be in violation of articles 482 and 484 of the country’s Criminal Procedure Law.

In April 2024, CPJ and 26 other press freedom and human rights organizations sent a letter to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) urging the UNWGAD to determine whether Abdelfattah’s detention is arbitrary and violates international law.

The 2019 arrest, which took place about six months after Abdelfattah was released after serving a previous five-year sentence, occurred amid a government crackdown on protests demanding that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi resign. Abdelfattah had posted about the protests and arrests on Facebook and wrote about politics and human rights violations for numerous outlets, including the independent Al-Shorouk newspaper and the progressive Mada Masr news website.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The appeal was submitted by 34 organizations, including CPJ, and urged the UNWGAD to consider Abdelfattah’s case and issue its opinion on whether the journalist’s detention is arbitrary and contrary to international law.

Abdelfattah was arrested in September 2019, a few months after his conditional release from prison, where he had served a five-year sentence. He has written about politics and human rights violations for numerous outlets, including the independent Al-Shorouk newspaper and the progressive Mada Masr news website. In December 2021, he was sentenced to another five years in prison on anti-state and false news charges.

Read the full letter in English and العربية.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

23 November 2023

Dear Members of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,

We, the undersigned 34 freedom of expression and human rights organisations, are writing regarding the recent submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) filed on behalf of the award-winning writer and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a British-Egyptian citizen.

On 14 November 2023, Alaa Abd El-Fattah and his family filed an urgent appeal with the UNWGAD, submitting that his continuing detention in Egypt is arbitrary and contrary to international law. Alaa Abd El-Fattah and his family are represented by an International Counsel team led by English barrister Can Yeğinsu.

Alaa Abd-El Fattah has spent much of the past decade imprisoned in Egypt on charges related to his writing and activism and remains arbitrarily detained in Wadi al-Natrun prison and denied consular visits. He is a key case of concern to our organisations.

Around this time last year (11 November 2022), UN Experts in the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council joined the growing chorus of human rights voices demanding Abd el-Fattah’s immediate release.

We, the undersigned organisations, are writing in support of the recent UNWGAD submission and to urge the Working Group to consider and announce their opinion on Abd El-Fattah’s case at the earliest opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

Brett Solomon, Executive Director, Access Now

Ahmed Samih Farag, General Director, Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies

Quinn McKew, Executive Director, ARTICLE 19

Bahey eldin Hassan, Director, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)

Jodie Ginsberg, President, Committee to Protect Journalists

Sayed Nasr, Executive Director, EgyptWide for Human Rights

Ahmed Attalla, Executive Director, Egyptian Front for Human Rights

Samar Elhusseiny, Programs Officer, Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF)

Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Daniel Gorman, Director, English PEN

Wadih Al Asmar, President, EuroMed Rights

James Lynch, Co-Director, FairSquare

Ruth Kronenburg, Executive Director, Free Press Unlimited

Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)

Adam Coogle, Deputy Middle East Director, Human Rights Watch

Mostafa Fouad, Head of Programs, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement

Sarah Sheykhali, Executive Director, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement

Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Director, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

Matt Redding, Head of Advocacy, IFEX

Alice Mogwe, President, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Shireen Al Khatib, Acting Director, The Palestinian Center For Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)

Liesl Gerntholtz, Director, Freedom To Write Center, PEN America

Grace Westcott, President, PEN Canada

Romana Cacchioli, Executive Director, PEN International

Tess McEnery, Executive Director, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)

Antoine Bernard, Director of Advocacy and Assistance, Reporters Sans Frontières

Ricky Monahan Brown, President, Scottish PEN

Ahmed Salem, Executive Director, Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR)

Mohamad Najem, Executive Director, SMEX

Mazen Darwish, General Director, The Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)

Mai El-Sadany, Executive Director, Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)

Kamel Labidi, Board member, Vigilance for Democracy and the Civic State

Aline Batarseh, Executive Director, Visualizing Impact

Menna Elfyn, President, Wales PEN Cymru

Miguel Martín Zumalacárregui, Head of the Europe Office, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.

Ulate had taken over the case in August 2022 from two other lawyers, Romeo Montoya García and Mario Castañeda, after the prosecutor in Zamora’s case announced that they were under investigation. After less than three months of representing Zamora, Ulate left Guatemala for a trip to Honduras. The attacks, he said, stopped abruptly.

Looking back, Ulate believes the harassment was part of a clear pattern. Other lawyers who would go on to represent Zamora — there were 10 in total by the time of the journalist’s June conviction on money laundering charges widely considered to be retaliation for his work — were harassed, investigated, or even jailed. 

“We knew that the system was against us, and that everything we, the legal team, did around the case was being closely scrutinized,” Ulate told CPJ. 

Zamora’s experience retaining legal counsel, while extreme, is hardly unique. CPJ has identified lawyers of journalists under threat in Iran, China, Belarus, Turkey, and Egypt, countries that are among the world’s worst jailers of journalists. To be sure, lawyers are not just targeted for representing journalists. “Globally lawyers are increasingly criminalized or disciplined for taking on sensitive cases or speaking publicly on rule of law, human rights, and good governance issues,” said Ginna Anderson, the associate director of the American Bar Association, which monitors global conditions for legal professionals. 

But lawyers and human rights advocates told CPJ that when a lawyer is harassed for representing a journalist, the threats can have chilling effects on the free flow of information. Inevitably, journalists unable to defend themselves against retaliatory charges are more likely to be jailed – leaving citizens less likely to be informed of matters of public interest.  

A barometer of civil liberties 

Attacks on the legal profession – like attacks on journalists – can be a barometer of civil liberties in a country, legal experts told CPJ. Hong Kong, once viewed as a safe harbor for independent journalists, is one such example. The territory has seen multiple members of the press prosecuted under Beijing’s 2020 national security law, including media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, who faces life imprisonment. Lai, a British citizen, is represented by both U.K. and Hong Kong legal teams, which work independently of each other, and both have faced pressure.  

Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the head of the U.K. team, has spoken openly on X, formerly Twitter,  about attacks on Lai’s U.K.-based lawyers, from smears in the Chinese state press to formal statements by Hong Kong authorities. Gallagher has faced death threats, attempts to access her bank and email accounts, and efforts to impersonate her online. “That stuff is quite draining and attritional and designed to eat into your time. They want to make it too much hassle to continue the case,” Gallagher told the Irish Times.

The Hong Kong legal team representing Lai — who has been convicted of fraud and is on trial for foreign collusion — has also appeared to have come under pressure from authorities. After Lai’s U.K. lawyers angered Beijing by discussing Lai’s case with a British minister, the Hong Kong legal team issued a statement distancing itself from the U.K. lawyers.   

Any appearance of working with foreigners could compromise not only Lai’s case but also the standing of his lawyers, said Doreen Weisenhaus, a media law expert at Northwestern University who previously taught at the University of Hong Kong.  

“They have to appreciate the potential harm that they could face moving forward — that they could become targeted — as they try to vigorously represent Jimmy Lai,” she told CPJ. 

CPJ reached out to Robertsons, the Hong Kong legal firm representing Lai, via the firm’s online portal and did not receive a reply.

Moves to isolate and intimidate lawyers working on Lai’s case are part of a larger crackdown over the last decade, including China’s 2015 roundup of 300 lawyers and civil society members. “In many ways, China institutionalized wholesale campaigns of going after journalists, activists, and now lawyers,” said Weisenhaus.  

Defending journalists who cover protests 

In Iran – another country where the judiciary operates largely at the government’s behest –   lawyers representing journalists have been targeted in the wake of the 2022 nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody. Those protests saw the arrests of thousands of demonstrators and dozens of journalists, including Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who helped break the story of Amini’s hospitalization. The two reporters are accused of spying for the United States; the two remain in custody while awaiting the verdict in their closed-door trials.  

Hamedi and Mohammadi’s lawyer, Mohammed Ali Kamfiroozi, who also represented human rights defenders, received warnings to dissuade him from continuing his work: phone calls from unlisted numbers, threats in the mail, ominous messages to his family, and an official letter from authorities telling him to stop his work, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. Nevertheless, Kamfiroozi continued his work, publishing regular updates about his clients’ cases on X until he, too, was arrested on December 15, 2022 while inquiring at a courthouse about a client.

Kamfiroozi’s last post on X before his arrest lamented the state of Iran’s judiciary: “This level of disregard for explicit and obvious legal standards is regrettable.” 

Kamfiroozi was released from Fashafouyeh prison after 25 days in detention and has not returned to his work as a lawyer, according to CPJ’s sources inside the country. A new legal team has since taken over the journalists’ cases. Since then, the crackdown on the legal profession has continued, with lawyers being summoned by the judiciary to sign a form stating they will not publicly release information about clients facing national security charges – a common accusation facing journalists. Lawyers who fail to sign can be disbarred and arrested at the discretion of local judges. 

Belarusian lawyers have also been muzzled in the wake of nationwide protests. After widespread demonstrations following the disputed August 2020 presidential election — during which dozens of journalists were arrested — Belarusian lawyers were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements preventing them from speaking publicly about many criminal cases. At least 56 lawyers representing human rights defenders or opposition leaders were disbarred or had their licenses revoked in the two years after the protests, and some were jailed, according to the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Initiative, the American Bar Association, and the group Lawyers for Lawyers. 

Belarusian lawyer Siarhej Zikratski, whose clients included the now-shuttered independent news outlet Tut.by, imprisoned Belsat TV journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, and program director of Press Club Belarus Alla Sharko, was required to undergo a recertification exam which ultimately resulted in authorities revoking his license. He fled the country in May 2021 after he was disbarred and amid ongoing pressure from the government on his colleagues.

In the months after he left, Tut.by was banned in Belarus and Andreyeva, who was nearing the end of a two-year imprisonment, was sentenced to another eight years on retaliatory charges. (Sharko was released in August 2021 after serving eight months.) 

“They took away my beloved profession and my business,” Zikratski wrote in a Facebook post announcing his emigration to Vilnius, Lithuania. “I will continue to do everything I can to change the situation in Belarus. Unfortunately, I cannot do that from Minsk.”

Lawyers in exile can lose their livelihoods 

While exile is not an uncommon choice to escape state harassment, it comes at a cost: lawyers are unable to continue their work in their home countries. 

“The bulk of the harassment against media and human rights lawyers, including criminal defense lawyers who represent journalists and other human rights defenders [occurs] in-country,” said Anderson of the ABA. “Increasingly this is forcing lawyers into exile where they face enormous challenges continuing to practice or participate in media rights advocacy.” 

This was the case for Ethiopian human rights lawyer Tadele Gebremedhin, who faced intense harassment from local authorities after he began defending reporters covering the country’s civil conflict in the Tigray region that began in November 2020.   

Gebremedhin represented freelance journalists Amir Aman Kiyaro and Thomas Engida, Ethio Forum journalists Abebe Bayu and Yayesew Shimelis, Awramba Times managing editor Dawit Kebede, and at least a dozen others, including the staff of the independent now-defunct broadcaster Awlo Media Center, whose charges are related to their reporting on the Tigray region. 

Gebremedhin told CPJ that the harassment started in May 2021 with thinly veiled threats from government officials and anonymous calls telling him not to represent journalists because members of the media are terrorists. He strongly suspected that he was under physical and digital surveillance, and his bank account was blocked.  In November 2021, he was detained by authorities and held for 66 days without charge before being released. 

“That was my payment for working with the journalists,” Gebremedhin said. 

He fled to the United States shortly after his release from police custody, and now works as a researcher at the University of Minnesota Law School Human Rights Center. Just a few of the dozens of reporters he defended are still working in journalism. While they are not behind bars, the damage done to civil society remains, Gebremedhin said. 

Lawyers arrested alongside journalists

Sometimes, lawyers are arrested alongside the journalists they represent. In the runup to Turkey’s May 2023 presidential elections, Turkish lawyer Resul Temur was taken into government custody in Diyarbakır province for his alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkish authorities consider a terrorist organization, along with several Kurdish journalists who were also his clients. 

Authorities took his work phone, computer, and all of his electronic devices, including his 9-year old daughter’s tablet, and all of the paper case files he had in his office, Temur told CPJ. He was released pending investigation, and fears he’ll soon be charged. 

“Lawyers like me who are not deterred by judicial harassment will continue to be the targets of Turkish authorities,” he said.

In Egypt, a country where numerous human rights defenders have been locked up, Mohamed el-Baker, the lawyer of prominent blogger and activist Alaa Abdelfattah, was arrested as he accompanied Abdelfattah to police questioning in September 2019. Authorities charged both with spreading false news and supporting a banned group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

After serving nearly four years of his sentence and amid growing international pressure, el-Baker was granted a presidential pardon in July. However, it remains unclear if the lawyer will be allowed to return to work. Many of his clients, Abdelfattah among them, remain in prison. 

Retaliation leads to censorship

The damage, from Egypt to Turkey to Guatemala and beyond, is great. When lawyers for reporters fear retaliation as much as the journalists do, it creates an environment of censorship that harms citizens’ ability to stay informed about what is happening in their countries.

“When journalists can’t have access to lawyers, they’re kind of left on their own,” Weisenhaus told CPJ. “I think we’ll still see courageous journalists who will continue to write about what they perceive as the wrongs in their country and their society. But those numbers could dwindle if they’re constantly being prosecuted and convicted.”

Additional research contributed by Dánae Vílchez, Özgür Öğret, and CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program staff.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Katherine Jacobsen.

On November 10, state security forces arrested Fayez, editor-in-chief of state-run newspaper Akhbar El-Barlman, from his home in Cairo, according to news reports and a local journalist following the case who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal. On the same day, authorities charged Fayez with spreading false news, misusing social media to incite a terrorist crime, and belonging to and funding a terrorist group and ordered his detention pending trial.

Fayez’s arrest stems from a November 8 Facebook post in which he claimed that prison authorities are force-feeding imprisoned journalist Alaa Abdelfattah to keep him alive during his prolonged hunger strike, according to news reports and the local journalist. Abdelfattah, imprisoned since 2019, began a hunger strike in April of no more than 100 calories per day, and escalated his hunger strike to coincide with the November 11 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, including stopping drinking water.

“By arresting journalist Ahmed Fayez for speaking about imprisoned journalist Alaa Abdelfattah, the Egyptian government is exposing its vendetta against local journalists and the press sector as a whole,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Fayez, drop all charges against him, and stop arresting journalists for doing their job.”

Ahead of COP27, human rights groups and local activists pressured the Egyptian government to improve the state of human rights and to release Abdelfattah.

CPJ’s email to the office of the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the security forces and prison system, did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Monday, state security officers arrested Moussa, a freelance journalist who contributes to independent news websites Masr al-Arabia and Al-Bawabh News, at his home in the northern city of Alexandria, according to news reports and a local journalist following all three cases who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on the condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.

According to that journalist and a report by local news website Darb, on October 9, state security officers arrested Shnin, a reporter for the independent news website Arab Ofok, at his home in the capital, Cairo. Separately, the local journalist told CPJ that on September 6, state security officers arrested Diab, a reporter for state-run newspaper Al-Ahram, from Cairo International Airport as he boarded a flight to China, according to news reports.

As of November 8, the whereabouts, charges, and reasons for the arrest of Moussa, Shnin, and Diab are unknown, according to the local journalist.

“By arresting three journalists ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27), President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s government is making a clear statement that it does not care for the protection of journalists or human rights,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “Egyptian authorities must release journalists Mohamed Mostafa Moussa, Amr Shnin, and Mahmoud Saad Diab, and allow journalists to work freely without fear of detention.”

Human rights defenders have been pressuring Egyptian authorities to improve the state of human rights and release imprisoned journalists, including Alaa Abdelfattah, ahead of COP27, which will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh on November 11.

Last week, CPJ joined more than 60 human rights groups in calling for the release of Abdelfattah, whose health is gravely deteriorating as a result of a hunger strike.

CPJ’s email to the office of the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the security forces and prison system, did not receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Abdelfattah, imprisoned since 2019, began a hunger strike in April of no more than 100 calories per day, which resulted in the severe deterioration of his health. In a November 1 letter to his family, Abdelfattah announced that he will go on a full hunger strike, and on November 6, coinciding with the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, he will stop drinking water, the joint letter said. 

The letter also includes calls to British authorities, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. Special Procedures, government and business leaders, as well as civil society organizations, groups, and activists, to mobilize for Abdelfattah’s release. 

The full letter can be read here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The September 29 letter also calls on British authorities to intervene to secure the release of Abdelfattah, who obtained U.K. citizenship while in jail, noting that Abdelfattah’s health “has deteriorated to a critical and life-threatening point” following more than 180 days on hunger strike in protest over his conviction and harsh detention conditions.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Now, his new book “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” a collection of Abdelfattah’s writings that includes essays, tweets, and those smuggled letters, has been translated from Arabic and published, offering English readers their first opportunity to read the thoughts and reporting of the journalist, who has been in custody since 2014.

Last month, Sanaa Seif, Abdelfattah’s sister, visited the U.S. to promote the book and advocate for her brother’s release. Seif sat down for an interview at CPJ’s headquarters in New York to discuss Abdelfattah’s book, hunger strike, and the injustices he and his family have been going through since his first arrest in 2011.

CPJ emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, which oversees the police and prison system in Egypt, for comment, but did not receive any response. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell us about Alaa’s new book, “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated”? What significance does it have to English readers?

Alaa used to write for local independent news website Mada Masrand other newspapers when that was possible, and he continued writing while in prison. Recently, some family friends decided to collect his writings, including those smuggled from prison, translate them to English, and put them all in a book for the English reader.

The title of the book is “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” and “You” refers to the reader. The Egyptian uprising of 2011 was clearly defeated, and the way Alaa saw it, is that there is value in facing our defeat and learning from it, so a lot of his writings are about that. We think that our defeat could be an inspiration to others, especially to those who have not yet been defeated.

When I last visited Alaa in prison, he told me that he was very happy about this book getting published. The reason for him being in prison is to imprison his voice, so since the book is out, his voice is out too.

To what extent are you and your family in touch with Alaa?

Prison visits are allowed only once a month for 20 minutes, and only one person is allowed per visit through a telephone speaker and a glass wall, so we don’t hug Alaa. We don’t get much time with him, but it is always quality time with Alaa.

However, during the [COVID-19] pandemic, the only way we could get news of Alaa was through letters, and at some point, they [the authorities] decided to ban the letters too. One time, my mother, my sister, and I decided to stage a sit-in in front of the prison gate, demanding we get a letter from Alaa. We didn’t know whether he was fine or not, and we have been hearing very worrying news about him.

The next day, some civilian women with bricks and wooden sticks approached us while we waited and started beating us up and stole our stuff. I was badly injured, and all this happened while prison guards, whose job is to secure the prison, watched. Later, I found out that these women were sent by the police, and they had received orders to particularly humiliate me.

The next day, we went to the public prosecutors’ office to file an official complaint. There, they told me that they need to inspect my injuries, so I went with them while my family waited, only to find myself getting arrested. They took me directly to an emergency hearing where I was charged with spreading false news about the lack of COVID-19 precautions in prison and insulting public officials on duty, referring to the prison guards who were watching me getting beaten up. I was also charged with committing two terrorist crimes.

I was sentenced to one and a half years in prison after being convicted of spreading false news and insulting a public official. The terrorism charges did not go to court, and I am still facing them. They also made sure to tell me that they can use these terrorism charges against me to put me back in prison at any time.

Why do you continue your online advocacy for Alaa when it’s dangerous for you?

I was imprisoned three times, and there are different details for each time, but it all comes down to the fact that I won’t shut up about the injustices that my brother is facing. Each and every time I am released, I am always told that I can live my life peacefully only if I stop writing or talking about Alaa.

I don’t really have a choice but to continue talking about him. I would consider holding back if the other party was in any way reasonable, like if I had made a compromise — my brother would be out. But according to all the unofficial conversations they [the authorities] have had with me, it didn’t seem that any compromise would be enough to get Alaa out. It is clear they want to keep him in prison.

How would you describe Alaa’s prison conditions?  And can you tell us about his latest hunger strike?

From my personal experience, prison conditions have been deteriorating over the years. But for Alaa especially, the past three years were much worse than anything we have ever experienced.

He spent five years in prison before being out on probation, where he had to spend 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in jail every day. But Alaa is always able to write if he has access to a pen and paper. For example, during the six months he was on probation, if he had an idea in his mind that he wanted to write about, he would collect all the material and study it before 6 p.m. and then write about it while in custody. Even then, state security officers repeatedly raided his jail cell inside the police station, blindfolded him, and threatened that he would go back to prison.

When Alaa was re-arrested after sharing the tweet that accuses officer Ahmed Fekry of killing a political prisoner in Tora maximum security prison, they placed Alaa in the same prison and under the authority of the same police officer [Fekry].

On his first day back in prison, they [the officers] did this thing called a “welcome party,” where they basically humiliated and tortured him. Ahmed Fekry was present. After that, they deprived him of his basic rights. Alaa is not allowed sunlight, fresh air, books, or even a paper or a pen, and when they allow him to send us a letter, they give him a pen and a paper and ask him to write to us on the spot, only to monitor what he writes.

Back in October 2021, Alaa was so fed up with being deprived of his rights and expressed suicidal thoughts, which is unlike him. But instead of giving up to that mental state, he decided to fight back and resist. Alaa started a hunger strike on April 2 to express how fed up he is with this nonsense.

[Editors’ note: CPJ cannot independently confirm any allegations of torture, but they are in line with Egyptian prisoners’ accounts. Abdelfattah described the “welcome party” in a 2019 article in Mada Masr. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior, which oversees the police and prison system in Egypt, did not return CPJ’s email request for comment on the allegations against Ahmed Fekry and the Tora prison officials.]

How has being in and out of prison for over a decade affected Alaa’s family?

When Alaa was released on probation, it was energizing for us, especially for his son, who’s about 12 years old today and has not seen his father much. But during his probation period, they managed to create a very strong and intimate relationship. During Alaa’s first five-year sentence, his boy was young, and for him, Alaa did not exist. So now, it is much harder on his son, who now knows who his father is and is being deprived of him.

For all of us, that time was very refreshing, especially the brief six hours that Alaa would split between all of us during the day before returning to the police station. I remember being surprised by how he can fit so well and so fast in our lives after being away for so long. I still remember the first moment he entered the house after his release. He had never seen my dog before, and they greeted each other so well as if they have known each other for a long time. It [his home] is just where he belongs!

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ MENA Staff.

“Egypt’s sentencing of journalists Alaa Abdelfattah and Mohamed Oxygen to years in prison is unacceptable, and demonstrates the lengths to which authorities are willing to go to punish these journalists for their work,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Both journalists have already spent several years in prison on bogus charges, and authorities must release them immediately and unconditionally.”

The Misdemeanors State Security Emergency Court in Cairo sentenced Abdelfattah to five years in prison, and sentenced Oxygen and Abdelfattah’s lawyer Mohamed al-Baker to four years each, after convicting all three of spreading false news and undermining state security, according to news reports.

Egyptian authorities have held Abdelfattah, a freelance journalist and blogger, and Oxygen, a blogger whose real name is Mohamed Ibrahim, since September 2019, while investigating them under terrorism and false news charges, according to CPJ research. Al-Baker was also arrested in September 2019 while he represented Abdelfattah during a police interrogation, as CPJ documented at the time.

Today’s verdict cannot be appealed, and Abdelfattah and Oxygen’s terrorism charges are still pending, according to a local journalist and press freedom advocate who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

CPJ emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Interior for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Today’s sentencing of Egyptian journalists Hisham Fouad and Hossam Moanis to four years each in prison is unacceptable, and authorities should release them immediately and unconditionally,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Egyptian authorities are making it clear that they will do whatever it takes to make sure these two journalists never leave their custody, even after more than two years in pretrial detention.”

The Misdemeanors State Security Emergency Court in Cairo sentenced Fouad and Moanis to four years each in prison and fined them 500 Egyptian pounds (US$30) for allegedly spreading false news in Egypt and abroad, according to news reports. Egyptian police arrested Fouad, a freelance journalist and columnist, and Moanis, a reporter for the local privately owned newspaper Al-Karama, on June 25, 2019, from their homes in Cairo, as CPJ documented at the time.

The verdict cannot be appealed, according to news reports. President Abdelfattah al-Sisi lifted Egypt’s state of emergency, imposed after a bombing in April 2017, on October 25, thereby stopping the use of emergency courts; however, that change did not apply to cases referred to such courts before that date, according to those reports.

Journalists Alaa Abdelfattah and Mohamed Oxygen, who are also facing prosecution in emergency courts, are scheduled to receive their verdicts on December 20, according to a local journalist and press freedom advocate who spoke with CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

CPJ emailed the Egyptian Ministry of Interior for comment but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.