Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered Monday the release of activist Ahmed Douma on bail of 50,000 Egyptian pounds (about $1,000), following his questioning in Case No. 7071 of 2025, human rights lawyer, Khaled Ali, told Al Manassa.
Ali added that the prosecution presented Douma with an investigative report compiled against him by the Ministry of Interior’s National Security Agency. The report accused him of “posting false information and news on his personal Facebook account about the physical assault on the Muslim Brotherhood government’s former Minister of Supply, Bassem Ouda, inside his cell at Badr Prison, by a National Security sector officer.”
“I cannot say for sure just how accurate the report of the assault on detainee Bassem Ouda is, but I do know the officer in question. His abuses against me personally have gone on for years. In every prison he has served, I have seen him assault detainees,” Douma wrote on Facebook.
“There isn’t a detainee that I know who was in a prison with this officer who did not speak out about his mistreatment. Most of the suicide attempts I know of occurred in prisons under his supervision. Every family of detainees I know who were under this officer’s supervision reported his abuse, denial of rights, humiliation, and breaches of regulations,” he added.
At the end of his post, Douma urged authorities to limit the officer’s powers, “place a limit on Ahmed Fikry’s absolute authority and his violations of all rights and laws. At least abide by your own laws, even the unjust ones.”
This summons marks the fifth time Douma has been called for questioning over the past year and the sixth case the Supreme State Security Prosecution has filed against him during this period. In previous statements he gave to Al Manassa, he clarified that he had not been summoned in the case in which the Attorney General accused him of “publishing a poetry collection deemed religiously offensive.”
At the end of July, the Supreme State Security Prosecution summoned Douma in Case No. 621 of 2025, accusing him of “broadcasting and circulating false news, statements, and rumors that threaten to harm national and societal security,” before releasing him on 50,000 pound bail.
During that investigation, the prosecutor confronted Douma with four posts he had previously published on social media. One highlighted the poor condition of the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road and issues in the city of Abu El-Matamir and the second addressed the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Another post centered on Egyptian media accusations against Hamas for opposing the Egyptian army in Sinai, and the fourth concerned the novel “Fool, Dead, Bastard, and Invisible” by Spanish author Juan José Millás.
Earlier, on April 26, the same prosecutor released Douma on 10,000 pound bail after accusing him of “spreading false news domestically and internationally” in Case No. 2563 of 2025, as Khaled Ali announced at the time.
According to Ali, the investigation centered on Douma’s Facebook post from April 13, in which he accused an informant in Cell 1 of the criminal wing at Tora Remand Prison of causing the death of a prisoner convicted on drug-related charges.
The prisoner was forced to take a laxative as part of routine inspections for criminal, and occasionally political, detainees before incarceration, to ensure they are not smuggling contraband internally.
Douma responded to the accusation of spreading false information, stating that everything he posted is true. “These are all things I witnessed myself and I hope they will be investigated and addressed,” he stated
At the time, eight human rights organizations issued a joint statement calling on Attorney General Mohamed Shawky, to close the investigation into the case and “to implement measures to ensure the prosecution is not misused as a means of restricting freedom of expression.”
These organizations described the summons, which was issued without any specified reason, as part of a broader pattern of intimidating and restricting political activists and dissenters.
They expressed their “concern” about Douma’s summonses, viewing them as part of an ongoing series of security measures targeting him since his release in August 2023 under a presidential pardon, following his 15-year maximum-security prison sentence in the Cabinet clashes case in 2013.
The organizations also warned of what they described as a “a recurring pattern adopted by the Supreme State Security Prosecution to continue to target political opponents, either by investigating them or re-imprisoning them after their release.” Illustrating this pattern, they noted that Douma was questioned on Nov. 10 in another Case, No. 5892 of 2024, over posts he was accused of publishing on social media. He was released then on bail of 20,000 pounds.
