Aida Seif El Dawla, director of the El Nadeem Center, said she has been summoned to appear for questioning at the Supreme State Security Prosecution on Sunday, adding that she will attend despite not knowing what she is accused of.
Seif El Dawla told Al Manassa that the summons, delivered by Dokki Prosecution, did not specify the reason for the questioning. It said the interrogation would be in Case 809 of 2026, Supreme State Security.
She described the summons as vague “like all the summons people have been getting lately.”
Asked whether she had posted anything on Facebook that might have prompted the summons, she said, “I’ve been posting on Facebook for a long time, so what’s new?”
On Feb. 3, the El Nadeem Center published a report on “ill-treatment and torture in places of detention,” based on its media archive for 2025.
The report documented 188 news items and appeals for help from detention facilities involving torture and ill-treatment, saying some cases were not limited to prisons but extended to judicial bodies “which are meant to safeguard citizens, but instead become sites of state overreach.”
It also said that among the distress calls were those related to “the black hole” in Sector 2 at Badr 3 prison.
Aida Seif El Dawla is a psychiatrist and human rights defender who co-founded and leads the El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, a Cairo-based independent group established in 1993. The center provides psychological, medical, and legal support to survivors of torture and other violence, and documents alleged abuses in detention.
In April, eight rights organizations warned in a joint statement about what they described as a “recurring pattern” by the Supreme State Security Prosecution to re-target political opponents, either by questioning them or by re-detaining them after their release.
The organizations said the rights to liberty and personal security, freedom of opinion and expression, and peaceful political activity are not privileges to be granted and withdrawn, but fundamental rights guaranteed by Egypt’s constitution and the international conventions Egypt has ratified.
