'Prison is not where they belong': Families urge release of political detainees

Relatives of political detainees held in pretrial detention convened Tuesday evening to demand their release at a solidarity conference at the Bread and Freedom Party headquarters in central Cairo. The event, held under the slogan “Prison is not where they belong,” brought together rights advocates, public figures, and politicians with detainees’ families.

The gathering sought to revive public pressure over prolonged pretrial detention in political cases, a practice rights advocates maintain has kept detainees behind bars for years without trial.

The conference hall walls were lined with dozens of photos of political detainees, detailing their ages, arrest dates, charges, and time in detention, alongside cartoons calling for their release.

During the event, Omar El-Gabakhangy, father of Al Manassa cartoonist, translator and guitarist Ashraf Omar, demanded the release of prisoners of conscience and called for clear standards to distinguish them from those accused of ordinary crimes. He said his son “does not belong in prison” and that the charges against him were fabricated.

Last Sunday, May 10, Ashraf Omar’s first trial session was held after 16 months in pretrial detention. The Cairo Criminal Court adjourned the case to July 13 to allow the defense to review the file.

Ashraf Omar, who was arrested at his home on July 22, 2024, is being tried in Case No. 11846 of 2025. He faces charges of “funding a terrorist group, joining a terrorist group to help it achieve its aims, using a website to promote ideas and beliefs calling for terrorist acts, and deliberately broadcasting false news, statements, and rumors inside and outside the country about domestic conditions.”

Among those attending were Nada Mougheeth, Ashraf Omar’s wife; her father, education expert Kamal Mougheeth; Civil Democratic Movement leader Karima El-Hefnawy; visual artist Naglaa Salama, wife of detained economist Abdelkhaleq Farouk; and MP Freddy El-Bayadi.

Testimonies from behind bars

Nada Mougheeth argued that treating pretrial detention as “only a legal issue” ignores its broader socio-economic impact on families and households, stressing the need to build a unified position among parties and civil society institutions to speak out about related violations.

She added that security agencies may be seeking, in addition to “revenge,” to break social bonds. However, she noted that the prison experience sometimes creates other, “deeper and stronger” bonds among prisoners themselves or between them and their families outside prison.

Speaking about her husband’s experience in prison, she recounted how he used his detention to learn and read, studying Spanish and reading hundreds of books. He also helped other prisoners with English and literacy.

She said she receives messages from former detainees describing how Ashraf supported them in prison and the daily discussions they shared about books, music, and films. She then read excerpts from letters and testimonies sent by former prisoners and friends in solidarity with him.

Nada Mougheeth herself was arrested and questioned before the Supreme State Security Prosecution on Jan. 16 last year over comments she made in a press interview about Ashraf Omar’s case, before the prosecution released her on 5,000 Egyptian pounds ($93) bail.

Calls for solidarity and action

Political opposition figure Ahmed Tantawy asserted in his speech that defending political detainees is inseparable from defending the future. He stated that those who once shared the political dream carry a shared responsibility toward those in prison, and that “everyone who falls victim must be sure that those around him will not forget him.”

Tantawy questioned the value of silence in recent years, urging greater solidarity across political groups and calling for “a carefully planned, broad-based and gradual strategy” for dealing with the authorities.

Tantawy told Al Manassa that treating the current situation as “the only possible reality” is a form of surrender. He urged people to consider other forms of action and expression, rather than only raising the ceiling of demands gradually.

Wafaa El-Masry, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience and the Karama Party, said the organizers could not display photos of all detainees. Photos of thousands of others had either not reached the committee or could not be documented. She added that she had hoped the exhibition would include photos of all political detainees, saying the current stage requires “effective steps,” which she did not name, in dealing with the pretrial detention file.

The conference also featured video clips from several public and political figures, including former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy, rights lawyer Khaled Ali, novelist Ibrahim Abdel Meguid and writer Mohamed Abdel Quddous, who expressed solidarity with those detained in political cases and demanded their release.

Speakers focused on the need to reopen the file of prolonged pretrial detention and treat detainees’ conditions as a humanitarian and political issue affecting the public sphere. 

Limited institutional response

Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat, deputy president of the National Council for Human Rights, said the council is still forming its committees and working groups after its recent reconstitution. He said it continues to follow up on complaints from detainees’ families and on issues related to visits and inspections inside detention facilities.

He added that the council cooperates with the Public Prosecution on these files, but cannot assess the scale of the response or its achievements, calling ti “the responsibility of the Public Prosecution.”

On pretrial detention, El-Sadat said the National Dialogue was supposed to lead to a review of some detainees’ conditions, but releases “came in limited numbers and not at the hoped-for level.” He said the crisis is tied more to implementation than to legal or constitutional texts.

Calls to keep up the pressure

Academic Laila Soueif said she believes “the government does not release anyone from prison unless it feels they have become a source of concern and a headache.” She called for more solidarity events, including protests, seminars, conferences, and symbolic strikes.

She said continued pressure is a “collective responsibility,” urging people not to retreat. “Any action, no matter how limited it may seem, must be intense and sustained,” she said.

Lawyer Islam Salama, a member of the Committee for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the problem extends beyond individual cases. He said many defendants in political cases face long periods of pretrial detention despite the absence of substantive evidence, as he put it.

He pointed to the case of activist and translator Marwa Arafa, who had spent about five years in detention before going to trial on charges of “joining a terrorist group.” He said the charges were “completely baseless.”

Marwa Arafa was arrested on April 20, 2020, after a security force raided her home and took her to an unknown location. She appeared two weeks later before the State Security Prosecution, which charged her with “joining a terrorist group and committing a financing crime.” The prosecution ordered her detention and failed to investigate complaints by her family about her enforced disappearance, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.