Ashraf Hamdi
A political commentator and cartoonist, Ashraf Hamdi was arrested on January 25, 2021 after reposting a cartoon for the 10-year anniversary of the 2011 uprising which led to the… More
Abdel Nasser Salama
Abdel Naser Salama, a columnist and political commentator, was arrested in July 2021 for a Facebook post in which he called for President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi to resign. While held… More
Ahmed Abdo Muhammad Maher
Maher is an Egyptian author, lawyer, and thinker charged with “contempt for Islam” for his book criticizing religious extremism. Charged in October 2021, less than a month later he… More
Abdennour Abdesselam
An ethnic minority rights advocate, Abdesselam was arrested on September 13, 2021 on charges of “belonging to a terrorist organization,” and was accused of being connected to the Movement… More
Alireza Nouri
Nouri, a member of the Iranian Writers' Association, was sentenced to two years imprisonment on the charge of “blasphemy through writing offensive poetry online” in 2017. While his prison… More
Gamal Al-Gamal
A freelance columnist and well-known critic of President El-Sisi’s policies, Al-Gamal left Egypt in 2017. On February 22, 2021, upon returning from exile in Türkiye, he was detained and… More
Said Djabelkhir
Scholar Djabelkhir was—without notice—charged with “offending the precepts of Islam” after writing 3 Facebook posts of “academic reflections” on the Quran and Islamic traditions in 2020. In April 2021,… More
Imad Barghouthi
Palestinian astrophysicist and professor Barghouthi was arrested on June 16, 2020. On August 2, 2020, after being detained for more than two weeks without explanation, he was charged with… More
Nasrin Sotoudeh
A human rights lawyer and prominent voice of conscience, Sotoudeh was briefly rearrested and beaten in October 2023 while attending a funeral of a slain teenage girl. She had… More
Abdulaziz Al-Dukhail
On April 25, 2020, Al-Dukhail was arrested and detained without formal charges for a tweet he posted in support of the activist Abdullah Al-Hamid following his death. According to… More