From games to cells: How Egypt’s courts fail its minors

In the cold of last December, a court sentenced two defendants to 10 years in prison. The prosecution accused the first of establishing and leading a terrorist organization, the second of joining it, and both of funding the group and conspiring to commit a terrorist act.

The charges are not unusual. The case, sadly, is almost routine. But what sets this apart is this: those who stand accused are children. They have not yet turned 18.

Despite their age, they were arrested. For days, their families and lawyers could not determine where their children were being held. Finally, they were brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP), not the juvenile court mandated to handle cases involving minors, and kept in pretrial detention for more than a year. In the end, the children were handed down a ten-year sentence.

Even now, the boys, their families, and their lawyers still don’t know the name of the so-called terrorist group, nor what terrorist activity the children are accused of. Their parents say the boys had joined a Telegram group while playing PUBG.

This is not to assert their innocence or preclude their guilt. We are simply struck, once again, by the routine disregard for Egyptian laws which provide clear mechanisms for dealing with children accused in criminal cases.

In Egypt, as in many countries, there is a separate legal path for investigating and trying minors. Children are supposed to be treated not as criminals, but as victims in need of protection.

Even countries like France whose laws allow pretrial detention for children under 18, treat it as a last resort to be exhausted when there is no alternative. And even then, children are detained in juvenile facilities, with access to education and family visits.

Here in Egypt, however, children are held in pretrial detention without a clear justification. They are forcibly disappeared for days without their families being told where they are. They are investigated by prosecutors not designated for them. They are detained alongside adults in the same cells. They are interrogated for hours inside security facilities without regard for their privacy. And not only do these offenses constitute a violation of international law, but of Egyptian law itself.

Worse still, these abuses are not isolated instances. They happen in patterns, regularly and collectively. And the situation becomes more dire when a child is just one file in a larger mass trial with hundreds of defendants. Case No. 165 of 2024, for example, included seven minors among 24 defendants.

Prison, for the masses

For over a decade, lawyers and human rights advocates have fought to end the use of pretrial detention as a punishment against adults. Instead, it is now being used against children who have not yet reached the legal age of responsibility.

Take the case of “M.S.,”who was just 16 when he was imprisoned for 10 months. During that time, his health collapsed. He risked losing his eyesight due to a condition requiring urgent surgery—a procedure the authorities refused to allow, even at his family’s expense.

“M.S.” was arrested on May 24, 2023, and faced the same list of accusations as the two boys, which included joining a terrorist organization. He was placed in pretrial detention. On July 19 of that year, a court ordered his release on the guarantee of his place of residence, citing his critical health condition.

But the interior ministry refused to carry out the order. Two days later, it brought him back before the prosecution in a new case—with the same charges. And just like that, “M.S.” was back in pretrial detention. Only after repeated appeals from his family, his lawyer, and multiple human rights groups did authorities finally release him.

Dostoevsky once wrote that the true measure of a society's civilization is how it treats its most vulnerable. It is hard, then, to understand why a powerful institution would fight this hard to crush a child.

Why are children sent to prison on the basis of security reports—without a single piece of actual evidence? What does the justice system lose by allowing a child to await trial at home?

A state must never become an instrument of cruelty against its weakest citizens. Even those minors who have committed real crimes—because of abusive households, poisoned environments, or broken systems—are still children. Still redeemable. Still deserving of care and rehabilitation.

If cases involving real, proven crimes must be approached with compassion and understanding, then that obligation is even greater in the case of a child who merely joined a protest, was drawn into an online game, or posted a video on TikTok.

Permanent damage

In 2020, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented the case of Karim Hamida, who was 16 at the time of his arrest. The charges did not include murder or bodily harm—and yet, he was sentenced to death in clear violation of both Egyptian and international law which prohibit the death penalty for defendants under the age of 18.

Following international pressure, his sentence was reduced to 10 years. Still, the ruling ignored serious violations, as he had been forcibly disappeared for weeks, tortured, and coerced into signing a confession which later became the prosecution’s main evidence. Human Rights Watch called the case emblematic of a disturbing pattern: minors tried in exceptional courts, convicted based on forced confessions, in blatant defiance of children's rights conventions.

This is not just about lost time. Or missed classes.

When a child is dragged from their bed to a prison cell, from a game to a cage—they don’t come back the same. They will emerge from the experience of captivity forever transformed. When detention is a child’s first encounter with the state, we risk producing a generation haunted by bitterness and betrayal.

The good news? This cycle is not inevitable. It can be broken.

It starts with acknowledging one simple truth. A child is a life in progress, not a security threat. Abuse of power is always wrong—but when the victim is a minor, it becomes something monstrous.

Egyptian law already contains safeguards for juvenile defendants. They are imperfect. But they exist. And they must be respected. The law also allows for leniency and clemency—measures that have been applied in high-profile cases like Hisham Talaat Moustafa and Sabry Nakhnoukh, both convicted of murder and weapons possession.

Yet those same legal doors were priced open for a young man arrested during a protest in 2013. Ayman Mousa was 19. He spent his entire twenties behind bars. Last month, he turned 32.