Egypt detains father of prominent YouTuber Abdullah Al-Sherif

Prominent YouTuber Abdullah Al-Sherif has announced on Twitter that Egyptian authorities have arrested his 74-year-old father.

Abdullah’s father is thought to have been arrested after the presenter published a video of a young woman talking about development projects under Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and the president’s successes. According to the YouTube host, Nouran – who features in the video – was being told what to say to the camera.

ًوانا إسمي عبدالله الشريف
وسامحوني على كثافة النشر الفترة الجاية علشان هصدعكم، وعاوز المصريين يصوروا فيديوهات حقيقية مش زي بتاعت نوران واليوم السابع، ويبعتوهالي على رقم الواتس ده
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وشكراً لمن سرب فيديو نوران قبل المونتاج 😚 pic.twitter.com/Mg5hMZDYAe

— عبدالله الشريف (@AbdullahElshrif) November 6, 2022

Abdullah has over four million subscribers on YouTube and has featured content critical of the government on his show.

Two years ago, Abdullah, who lives in exile, broadcast a video which showed the Egyptian army mutilating a young man in Sinai, which later went viral.

The episode received almost three million hits in the five days after it was published and activist Nermine Hussein was arrested after sharing the video on her Twitter page.

In 2021 the social media star published a leak which reportedly caught Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s advisers discussing a two million Egyptian pound reward, then $127,000, for every project passed to the Armed Forces Engineering Authority.

As part of a crackdown on dissidents living abroad, the Egyptian authorities have arrested family members of outspoken activists and journalists if they still reside in Egypt as a way of pressuring them not to speak out about the regime.

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In 2020 Abdullah’s two brothers, Amr and Ahmed, were forcibly disappeared from their family home in Alexandria and their whereabouts are still unknown.

At the time, Abdullah’s father appeared on state-run TV denouncing his son and Egyptian lawyer Tarek Mahmoud called for Interpol to issue a Red Notice against him for “spreading disorder and destabilising internal security.”

According to Abdullah, he initially avoided sharing content related to the protests due to take place on Friday to draw attention to the country’s abysmal human rights record and spiralling economic conditions, but since his father’s arrest is now tweeting about the demonstrations.