Rasha Azab released on bail after being accused of promoting terrorist acts
The Supreme State Security Prosecution on Monday ordered journalist Rasha Azab released on 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($190) bail pending an investigation into allegations that she “used a website to promote ideas calling for the commission of terrorist crimes.”
The case, No. 8025 of 2026, concerns a post about the interior ministry that she published on her X account on Sept. 23. Azab said the post was intended as an expression of solidarity with Egyptian citizen Dina Ezzat, according to her lawyer, Mahienour El-Massry, who spoke to Al Manassa.
On that date, Azab published a post saying: “How long does it take to go from the Interior Ministry’s thugs to ‘the people want the fall of the regime’?”
El-Massry said the Supreme State Security Prosecution confronted Azab with 11 largely identical complaints filed against her by citizens in different governorates over the post.
According to El-Massry, Azab confirmed during questioning that she owned the account where the post was published and acknowledged responsibility for it. However, she denied the charges brought against her, saying the post contained no promotion or incitement to commit terrorist crimes.
El-Massry said one reason the interrogation session, which began around noon and ended around 8 pm, lasted so long was that Rasha Azab discussed recent incidents and violations affecting the journalism profession, as well as the broader issue of freedoms and the restrictions they face.
Azab announced Sunday that security forces delivered an official summons to her family’s home on Saturday, ordering her to report for questioning in connection with the case.
“The message is clear, and my response is clear: Long live the struggle of journalists; down with the journalism of security directives; freedom for the detainees; freedom and life for the Egyptian people,” Azab wrote on X.
The summons follows a protracted pattern of state surveillance and intimidation directed at Azab. In December 2024, she staged an open-ended sit-in inside the Journalists Syndicate to protest what she identified as systematic security operations calculated to upend her personal safety, including persistent street harassment and the unresolved theft of her vehicle in Cairo’s Zamalek district.
She launched the protest after exhausting all available domestic legal channels, following the refusal by both the Qasr Al-Nil police station and local prosecutors to release area surveillance footage or provide updates regarding her official complaint.
During that period, Amnesty International urged Egyptian authorities to immediately halt their “disgraceful intimidation campaign” targeting Azab and demanded that the Prosecutor General open an immediate investigation into her complaints.
The rights group noted that Azab, an outspoken critic of the Egyptian government’s diplomatic and political stance toward the conflict in Gaza, had faced persistent intimidation and threats following the outbreak of hostilities on October 7, 2023.
Those incidents included repeated stalking by three unidentified men and multiple warnings delivered through intermediaries cautioning that state security agencies planned her arrest.
Mary Lawlor, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, similarly condemned the targeted pressure at the time, demanding an immediate end to the harassment and calling on authorities to guarantee Azab’s safety.
“Disturbing news from Egypt that HRD [human rights defender] and journalist Rasha Azab is facing surveillance and threats from suspected security agents following her peaceful protests against the Gaza war,” Lawlor stated on X.