Rights Groups Demand Egypt Immediately Release Ahmed Douma and End Judicial Harassment

Civil Society Organizations Worldwide Call for the Immediate Release of Ahmed Douma

We, the undersigned civil society organizations from around the world, call on Egyptian authorities to immediately release prominent activist, poet and political writer Ahmed Douma from pretrial detention and to stop their systematic campaign of judicial harassment against him.

On April 6, 2026, many in Egypt started the day with hopeful news following Egyptian authorities' long over-due release of a number of detainees in political cases. Meanwhile, Ahmed Douma headed to the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) following a summons that he had received a few days prior. As has become the norm, he was not informed of the accusations being made about him or the subject of his interrogation. Hours into the interrogation, Ahmed's lawyers learned that he was being accused of "publishing false news and statements inside and outside the country with the intent to disturb public peace and spread panic," in relation to an article he had published in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, "From a Prison Within the State to a State Within the Prison," which uses examples from around the world to present an argument on why political imprisonment is destabilizing for the state. He was ordered into pretrial detention for four days pending Case No. 2449 of 2026 and has been in Egyptian authorities' custody since.

Ahmed Douma has already spent over a decade in prison on politicized charges. In custody, he has been held in prolonged solitary confinement, denied adequate medical care, and subjected to treatment that Amnesty International described as torture. His detention was found to be arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Though Ahmed was finally released in August 2023 on a presidential pardon, authorities have not relented, depriving him of the chance to rebuild his life. Since his release, Ahmed has been summoned by prosecutors on at least seven occasions for his social media posts, writings, and activism. He has been made to pay bail, totalling 230,000 Egyptian Pounds.

For Egyptian authorities to intensify their judicial harassment campaign of Ahmed by re-arresting him following a sustained campaign of seven interrogations is a severe escalation at a time during which Egyptian authorities should be doing the opposite — releasing the thousands long-held in pretrial detention and stopping the prosecution of those exercising their rights to free expression, assembly, and association. At a time when Egypt is purporting to be a mediator in global conflicts, it cannot continue to pursue these retaliatory prosecutions and these sustained campaigns to silence its population over critical content.

We, the undersigned organizations, call on Egyptian authorities to course correct and immediately release Ahmed Douma, drop all charges against him, and close Case No. 2449 of 2026 in its entirety. We call on Egyptian authorities to lift the travel ban that remains imposed on him, end all ongoing prosecutions, and stop exercising its arrest and prosecution powers to silence him for his exercise of free expression and defense of human rights.

List of Signatories

(in alphabetical order)

1. Access Now
2. African Leaders Nexus
3. American Committee for Middle East Rights (ACMER)
4. Amnesty International
5. Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE)
6. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
7. Committee for Justice (CFJ)
8. Committee to Protect Journalists
9. DAWN
10. Egyptian Front For Human Rights
11. Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF)
12. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
13. EgyptWide for Human Rights
14. El Nadim Center
15. Gohoud to Support Human Rights Defenders
16. Hounna Media Platform
17. HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
18. IFEX
19. INSM
20. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
21. International Service for Human Rights
22. Kawaakibi Foundation
23. Law and Democracy Support Foundation (LDSF)
24. MENA Rights Group
25. Mesahat Foundation for Development and Human Rights
26. Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
27. PEN America
28. PEN International
29. People in Need
30. REDWORD for Human Rights & Freedom of Expression
31. Refugees Platform in Egypt (RPE)
32. Samir Kassir Foundation
33. Sinai Foundation for Human Rights
34. Start Point Organization
35. Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
36. Tbian for Rights and Freedoms
37. The African Middle Eastern Leadership Project (AMEL)
38. The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms
39. The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)
40. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders