The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) called on Prosecutor General Mohamed Shawky and the head of the Cairo Court of Appeal to immediately release 131 people held in pretrial detention in 13 cases linked to peaceful acts of solidarity with Palestine.
EIPR said nearly half of them have already exceeded the two-year legal maximum for pretrial detention, or are weeks away from reaching it, making their continued detention “a clear violation of the law.”
In a statement on Tuesday, the group said that despite two and a half years having passed since Israel launched its war on the besieged Gaza Strip, which an independent UN commission of inquiry and international organizations have described as genocide, Egyptian authorities are still holding seven children, two elderly women, one of them a 68-year-old doctor with chronic illnesses, and a young man with dwarfism.
The statement highlighted humanitarian cases among those detained, including lawyer Mahmoud Nasser Dawoud, 34, who has been held for nearly two and a half years despite suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and a pulmonary blockage, and who told his family he plans to begin a hunger strike in protest over his detention conditions.
EIPR also pointed to the case of engineer Sami Yehia El-Gendy, who has been held since October 2023. His mother, who has cancer, cannot visit him because his detention site in Wadi El-Natrun is too far from her home in Dakahliya, prompting calls for his transfer closer to his family.
Most of the arrests stem from the October 2023 protests, for raising street banners calling for the opening of the Rafah crossing, posting on social media, or praying for Palestine inside mosques, EIPR said.
EIPR said prosecutors have referred 73 defendants to trial in three cases, including 62 who remain in custody, but the Cairo Court of Appeal has yet to assign court circuits to hear them, leaving their detention open-ended.
Although the activities align with Egypt’s officially declared support for Palestinian rights, the Supreme State Security Prosecution charged detainees under laws dating back to 1914 with offenses such as “joining a terrorist group” and “illegal assembly.”
Pretrial detention, under Article 134 of the Criminal Procedure Law, is a precautionary measure, not a punishment, EIPR said. It cannot be applied to people with known residences and stable families who pose no flight risk, particularly when the alleged acts were peaceful expressions of solidarity that presented no threat to public order.
