Egyptian authorities released two independent parliamentary candidates in Suez and Damietta after detaining them and several of their supporters in separate incidents tied to fraud-tainted elections marked by voter suppression and police complicity.
Talaat Khalil, a former MP and general coordinator of the Civil Democratic Movement, was released early Wednesday along with his sister after paying bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds each, following their arrest at a Suez polling station.
The previous night, Khalil broadcast a live video from inside the city's youth center, claiming he was being held without legal justification. “I am being detained without cause, along with my sister, because I filed a complaint against the supervising judge,” he said. “He disrupted voting and refused to record my written objections.”
The incident began when his sister, who holds power of attorney on his behalf, lodged a formal complaint against the judge, Khalil told Al Manassa following his release. “He flew into a rage, slammed the table, snatched the proxy from her, then seized my ID when I intervened. He wrote us up and ordered police to detain us,” Khalil explained. “To their credit, the police were sympathetic. They saw what happened and knew we had done nothing wrong.”
Just two days earlier, Khalil had publicly condemned the use of “political money” in Suez, denouncing organized vote-buying, mass voter transportation, and the targeting of impoverished communities. These practices, he said, continue despite President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi's calls to curb electoral corruption.
A parallel scene unfolded in Damietta, where independent candidate and lawyer Essam Beshtu was detained along with 12 supporters after staging a sit-in at the Faraskour police station. The group had attempted to file a complaint about vote buying and bribery during polling.
The Damietta Public Prosecution later ordered Beshtu's release on 20,000 pounds bail, while the remaining detainees—including three lawyers—were held pending further investigation.
Beshtu had approached the police station to report the distribution of food vouchers worth 100–200 pounds near polling sites, lawyer Nasser El-Imari told Al Manassa. When officers refused to document the incident, Beshtu began a livestream from inside the station, triggering police escalation.
The Ministry of Interior accused Beshtu and his supporters of storming the station, chanting offensive slogans, and allegedly attempting to assault officers while claiming the state had used criminal enforcers to rig the vote.
Bishtu’s supporters chanted, “We are occupying this station until the thugs are gone,” directly accusing police of protecting known offenders near polling stations.
Despite the arrests, El-Imari told Al Manassa the Damietta Lawyers' Syndicate supported the detained lawyers, and that the investigation had proceeded without reported abuse. He expressed hope that the remaining detainees would be released soon, pending the outcome of police inquiries.
These arrests come as Egypt's 2025 parliamentary elections spiral into deeper crisis. The second round concluded Tuesday across 13 governorates, including Cairo, Suez, and Damietta, with 1,316 candidates vying for 141 individual seats.
The first round was riddled with violations, including manipulated vote counts, partisan campaigning, and street protests over rigged results. In response to the growing backlash, President El-Sisi urged the National Election Authority (NEA) to investigate. The NEA subsequently nullified results in 19 districts across seven governorates.
Last Friday, ten Egyptian human rights organizations issued a scathing joint statement declaring the elections devoid of democratic legitimacy. They called for the immediate cancellation of the current electoral process, describing it as “entirely subject to presidential will” and denouncing the lack of independence of the NEA.
“The chaos and presidential interference expose the sham nature of this election,” the statement read, arguing that the process served only to entrench existing power structures.
