The Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered the pretrial detention of 51 young men and women for 15 days pending investigation on charges related to their membership in an online Discord group called “GenZ002–Gen Z,” according to human rights groups.
In a statement published Thursday, the Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) said it had documented the Supreme State Security Prosecution’s June investigation into 51 citizens, including nine women, with suspects ranging in age from 19 upward, in cases No. 4487 and 4753 of 2026.
They faced charges of “joining a terrorist group, misusing a social media platform, and publishing and disseminating false news and statements.”
Shorouk Sallam, director of the legal unit at the EFHR, told Al Manassa that all those arrested remain in custody. She said they are being held in different prisons, including 10th of Ramadan 4 and 6, as well as prisons in other governorates.
The security campaign began in the second half of May and continued over the past two months, Sallam told Al Manassa. Security agencies had begun tracking the group as early as last November, but that the use of anonymous accounts made it difficult to identify suspects until authorities arrested one member and, through that individual, reached the rest of the group, Sallam explained.
The EFHR said the young men and women were arrested in various locations before being taken to National Security facilities. There, according to several testimonies, they were questioned about their use of Discord and their participation in the GenZ002 group, which the rights group said was established by exiled Egyptian opposition figure Anas Habib.
All those arrested, according to the EFHR, were subjected to enforced disappearance at National Security facilities for periods ranging from 15 to 37 days before being brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution.
In its statement, the group said a number of detainees reported being subjected to physical abuse during detention, including beatings and suspension while blindfolded.
Justice for Human Rights (Adalah) confirmed these allegations, saying in their own statement that after the arrest campaign, detainees were held in National Security facilities, where they were subjected to enforced disappearance and mistreatment before being referred to the prosecution.
The EFHR called for the immediate and unconditional release of the detainees, the dismissal of all charges against them, and an independent investigation into allegations of torture and enforced disappearance. Justice for Human Rights also called for the release of all detainees who have not been proven to have committed or incited acts of violence, and urged an end to the use of pretrial detention as a tool to restrict freedom of opinion and expression.
Screenshots of the GenZ002 group, showing general forum rules and instructions to participate in the poll through VPN, Jan. 15, 2026.The GenZ002–Gen Z group emerged on Discord, a communications platform based on text and voice chat rooms that is commonly used by young people for gaming and group discussions. In recent years, however, it has also become a space for organizing political and youth campaigns in several countries.
Earlier this year, Al Manassa, in a joint investigation with Masar, documented disruptions to Discord in Egypt on Jan. 11 and 12, 2026, coinciding with activity by the GenZ002 group and the launch of an online vote titled “Popular Referendum to Remove El-Sisi.” According to the investigation, the vote received more than 500,000 responses and spread to other platforms through widely shared Arabic-language hashtags.
The Al Manassa-Masar investigation concluded that the disruption to Discord in Egypt was not a general service outage but a selective disruption targeting the service’s domain name using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology, a method that allows connections to be obstructed without an obvious conventional block of the website or application.
The invitation page for the GenZ002 Discord group describes itself as an “Egyptian national youth movement” united around the values of “justice, dignity, and full citizenship.”
Human rights organizations have linked the recent security campaign to the group’s activity on the platform, describing it as one of the online spaces used by young Egyptians for political discussion and organizing.
