Egypt targets its opponents abroad

He believed that by fleeing Egypt, the ordeal of pursuit, repression, and enforced disappearance would come to an end, but the jailer’s hand still reached his wife and children.

“Ahmed Al-Gamal” (a pseudonym) said he was forced to leave the country after being sentenced to 15 years’ rigorous imprisonment in the case known in the media as the ‘Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in dispersal’ on 14 August 2013.

The charges brought against Al-Gamal included ‘joining a terrorist group, armed assembly, premeditated murder and sabotage of public facilities’, prompting him to flee the country, leaving his wife and children without a breadwinner.

From time to time, on a near-regular basis, Egyptian security forces raid the family’s home after midnight in a village in Giza governorate, near the capital, ransacking the apartment, confiscating family members’ phones, and threatening the wife with arrest, he said.

Since the military coup of 3 July 2013, which ousted the late president Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected civilian president, Egyptian authorities have persistently pursued his supporters, fabricated charges against them, and subjected their families and relatives to harassment and abuse.

Punishment by proxy

The pattern of ‘punishment by proxy’ is escalating through targeting the families and relatives of activists and opposition figures living abroad, via raids, arrests and enforced disappearances, in an effort to pressure or punish them for their views and activities. This practice effectively turns the families of dissidents into hostages of the Egyptian authorities, according to 19 Egyptian and international human rights orgnisations.

At 3 a.m., the child ‘Adel Mahmoud’ (a pseudonym) was placed in a cell at a police station in Fayoum governorate (central Egypt), in an attempt to pressure him into revealing where his father had travelled abroad, how the family remained in contact with him, and the source of their financial support, he told Middle East Monitor.

The list of victims includes many cases, most notably activist Saif Al-Islam Eid, host of the podcast Anbar Kullu Yisma‘, whose father, Al-Sayed Sobhi Eid (63), was arrested by National Security forces (an internal intelligence agency) on 22 October, forcibly disappeared for several days, and later remanded in pretrial detention by the Supreme State Security Prosecution in Case No. 6468 of 2025 on politically motivated charges.

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In May of this year, Sayed Khamis was arrested and forcibly disappeared for three weeks over the human rights activities of his brother, who lives abroad, while another brother, Shaaban Khamis, was briefly detained before being released for health reasons.

In August 2023, Egyptian security forces arrested the father of journalist Ahmed Gamal Ziada and held him for several days before releasing him, in connection with his son’s activities and journalistic work abroad.

There have been other cases of ‘punishment by proxy’ in recent years, including the arrest of the father of prominent YouTuber Abdullah Al-Sharif in 2021; a raid on the family home of Berlin-based academic Taqaddum Al-Khatib in Luxor governorate (southern Egypt) the same year; the arrest of relatives of human rights activist Mohamed Soltan in 2020; the detention of four relatives of Turkey-based artist and broadcaster Hesham Abdallah in 2020; the arrest of nine members of the family of broadcaster Sherif Mansour; the detention of the brother of broadcaster Sami Kamal El-Din in the same year; and the arrest of Dr Amr Abu Khalil, brother of Al-Sharq TV broadcaster Haitham Abu Khalil, in October 2019. He died in custody 11 months later.

Hostage strategy

Transnational repression continues to target dissidents abroad through systematic practices described as a ‘hostage strategy’, including the arrest and enforced disappearance of their family members, the imposition of travel bans, passport confiscations, dismissal from public-sector jobs, the seizure of assets, and placement on terrorism lists.

Individuals placed on terrorism lists are subject to a range of restrictions under Egyptian law, including the freezing of funds, restrictions on the use or disposal of private property, travel bans and placement on watch lists, prohibitions on activity and asset freezes for legal entities, and restrictions on domestic and foreign financing. They also lose the status of ‘good conduct and reputation’ required to hold public office or run for parliamentary positions.

An Egyptian journalist working for an Arab news channel, who requested anonymity, said his wife had been prevented from travelling to join him on multiple occasions. Another journalist, who also asked not to be named, said his home was raided and his parents were intimidated after he published a report criticising President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Families of dissidents often keep quiet about the abuse they have endured and refrain from contacting human rights organisations or filing complaints with official bodies, for fear that new charges could be fabricated against their members. In many cases, they are also forced to relocate to another governorate.

Last month, Egyptian authorities referred political activist Anas Habib, who lives abroad, along with 49 other Egyptians, to a criminal court in absentia on charges related to participating in a campaign calling for the closure of Egyptian embassies overseas. Habib’s family was also subjected to security harassment, with his uncle, Mokhtar Tayel (68), and Tayel’s son, Omar, arrested from their home in Beheira governorate on 22 July. Both were remanded in pretrial detention in Case No. 4880 of 2025 on charges including ‘joining a terrorist group’, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

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Social repression

Another aspect of the campaign targeting Egyptian dissidents abroad can be described as ‘social repression’, whereby the authorities break up families and deny them reunification by preventing wives and children from travelling and confiscating their passports.

An Egyptian human rights lawyer, who requested anonymity, told Middle East Monitor that dozens of Egyptians living in Turkey have been separated from their wives and children due to security abuses, with family members barred from travel without court rulings. This has left entire families under the strain of displacement and, in some cases, at risk of eventual breakup or separation.

Some dissidents’ wives have resorted to sham divorces in an attempt to remove their husbands’ names from identity and travel documents, but were still prevented from travelling, according to the same source.

Some young activists became engaged before leaving Egypt, hoping to marry, and authorised others to complete the marriage contract on their behalf. However, the bride was subjected to harassment and barred from travelling, causing the newly formed marriage to collapse before it was consummated, ending in separation and divorce.

Forms of systematic repression have expanded to include dismissing dissidents abroad from the jobs they held before leaving the country, denying extensions to their leave, expelling students from public universities, seizing funds and property, and placing individuals on terrorism lists.

This is not a new policy, nor an invention of El-Sisi or the 2013 coup. It dates back to the 1950s, when it was introduced under the late president Gamal Abdel Nasser. The approach is based on eliminating opposition — foremost among them the Muslim Brotherhood — by rendering its members unfit for normal life, so to speak, and exerting intense pressure on families, particularly wives, until they come to resent the ideology that has brought them into confrontation with the state, according to political researcher and analyst Amr Al-Masri.

Al-Masri added that the policy of punishment by proxy also involves the arrest of women and children and placing family members under a continuous cycle of hardship, beginning with the seizure or placing of their funds and property under guardianship and the imposition of travel bans. This, he said, is intended to instil fear in anyone who might contemplate opposing the current ruling system.

Within Egypt, the ‘hostage strategy’ appears to have proven effective in pursuing dissidents across borders and forcing them into silence or prompting them to tone down their criticism of the El-Sisi regime in the hope of protecting their relatives from abuse and shielding them from the authorities’ repression.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.