The Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF) said on Wednesday that Egyptian authorities are carrying out a systematic campaign of “transnational repression” against political and human rights activists abroad, including through travel bans, document denials and pressure on family members inside Egypt.
EHRF founder Moataz El Fegiery who presented EHRF's annual report at a press conference in Brussels, told Al Manassa that repression of Egyptians in exile “appears to constitute a deliberate policy to deprive political and human rights actors in exile of any possibility of a safe and unconditional return to their homeland.”
The report, titled “Wherever They Go: Transnational Oppression and the Targeting of Egyptians Abroad,” documented 84 violations against Egyptians living outside the country. It defined transnational repression as actions taken by Egyptian authorities beyond their territory, or whose effects extend abroad, to silence or punish individuals for their political or human rights activities.
According to the report, such measures include alleged abuse of international police cooperation mechanisms, denial of passport renewals and identity documents, consular pressure, in-absentia prosecutions, digital surveillance, smear campaigns and targeting of relatives in Egypt.
The launch of Egypt’s National Dialogue in April 2022 was not accompanied by any improvement in the treatment of activists abroad, the report said. “Repression extended beyond Egypt’s borders,” and instruments of the state “transformed into an architecture designed for transnational targets,” El Fegiery explained.
The pattern, he told Al Manassa, often begins with denial of identity documents, followed by investigations and in-absentia rulings that may lead to placement on terrorism lists, alongside alleged threats to family members in Egypt.
The report said a survey of 34 activists in exile found that 72% reported that relatives in Egypt had faced security summonses, harassment or travel bans. In some cases, family members were allegedly arrested.
“In most cases where relatives or families were threatened, or fathers or brothers were arrested, the goal was really to target the activist abroad,” El Fegiery said.
He cited the case of Seif al-Islam Eid, a researcher who lives in Qatar and produces a podcast about detainees and the experiences of former prisoners of conscience. El Fegiery said Eid’s father “was arrested, tortured, and remains detained,” facing what he called “very strange cases,” even though he is “not political at all.”
The forum said denial of consular services has gone beyond administrative delays, documenting cases in which children of activists in the United Kingdom, Tunisia and Turkey were allegedly denied birth certificates or identity documents. It described such actions as “flagrant violation of the right to citizenship,” aimed at severing opponents’ ties to their homeland and making their legal status in host countries more precarious.
The 84 documented violations likely underrepresent the scale of the issue, as many activists are reluctant to publicize their cases for fear of reprisals against themselves or their families, El Fegiery said.
The report is not “criticism for the sake of criticism,” he added, but seeks to propose practical solutions to the crisis of hundreds of Egyptians who have been living abroad forcibly for more than a decade.
The report called on Egyptian authorities to establish a national committee, including independent human rights groups and legal experts, to review complaints from activists abroad and guarantee their right to return without fear of prosecution. It also urged an end to what it described as a “hostage policy toward families.
“Reintegrating activists in their homeland is the only way to end a crisis that has dragged on for years, away from policies of harassment that no longer recognize geographic borders or international law,” El Fegiery said.
Egyptian authorities did not immediately respond to the report’s findings.
EHRF issued a similar report in September 2024 to track the early emergence of such violations, documenting the suffering of Egyptian activists abroad through what it described as security pursuit by Egyptian authorities regardless of their country of residence. But El Fegiery said the latest report drew on a wider research scope, covering more countries and documenting more cases involving Egyptians abroad.
The state of human rights in Egypt has faced criticism for years. In October, the UN’s human rights office sent an official memo urging the Egyptian government to take “clear and tangible” steps to address “ongoing violations” in several major rights issues.
In February 2025, the working group for Egypt’s Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council issued a report that included 343 recommendations from 137 countries, including combating enforced disappearance, ending “recycling” of detainees, releasing political detainees, and guaranteeing media freedom.
