"Along with dozens of others in Sector 2 of Badr 3 Prison, I have been on a full and open hunger strike since July 1, 2025, in protest against the poor humanitarian conditions we endure in the prison. I do not know whether this cry will reach the honorable or if it will remain an isolated cry, locked away from the world with its owner."
This was the message published by Aisha Abdel Rahman a few months ago. She was referring to her father—Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdel Rahman El-Barr—who, alongside thousands of others, suffers inside Egyptian prisons. Such messages, alongside dozens of others leaked since July 2013, help elucidate the status of prisoners in Egypt. Ahead of Cairo's House of Representatives election on Nov. 7, they help highlight how political freedoms remain fully restricted in the country.
For years, political detainees in Egypt have faced more than imprisonment. It is a life of intense pain and tragedy: limited food and drink, insufficient visitor access for relatives and friends and no clean air or proper sleep. Prisoners have been held in solitary confinement, stripped of all legally entitled items that would alleviate this existence, such as a radio, books or pens and paper for journaling.
For years, political detainees in Egypt have faced more than imprisonment. It is a life of intense pain and tragedy: limited food and drink, insufficient visitor access for relatives and friends and no clean air or proper sleep.
- Ahmed Abdelhalim
This tragedy differs from one prison to another and from one set of prisoners to another, depending on their classification by the Egyptian National Security Agency, which controls and monitors political prisoners. For years, they have grown weary of leaking messages or participating in initiatives established by families and concerned human rights organizations. Through such efforts, political prisoners appealed to state officials—namely the President of the Republic and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar—requesting amnesty and release. Their requests go unanswered.
Islamists and their leaders—especially Muslim Brotherhood leadership—have experienced the worst of this dynamic. Arrested after the counterrevolution of July 2013 that saw current President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi take power from the Brotherhood-led government at the time, they have suffered incarceration for nearly 12 years. Since their arrest, the regime has denied access to legal counsel, with lawyers only meeting them within cages at trial.
In these trials, more than one Brotherhood leader has described the tragic situation, including Bassam Ouda, Mohammed Badie, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail and Mohammed Mahdi Akef, before he died in prison. Their stories highlight the miserable experience, offering proof of Cairo's desire to squash even minimal calls for democratic governance and civil liberties at any cost.
However, specific Islamist leaders continue to endure the largest share of repression inside Egyptian prisons due to Sisi's personal rivalries against them. For Sisi, this dynamic is informed by previous engagements and political battles with people he met, spoke to, and disagreed with during the post-Arab Spring democratic rule under the Brotherhood, spanning from February 2011 to July 2013—most notably Khairat El-Shater and Mohamed El-Beltagy. Their actions threatened Sisi's designs to rule Egypt with an iron fist, not unlike that of other Sisi rivals, including politician Hazem Salah Abu Ismail and Al-Wasat opposition party leader Essam Sultan.
The Egyptian television series, "El Ekhteyar," highlights these personal dynamics. In the third season, the president appeared in the series, played by Egyptian actor Yasser Galal. The episodes depict Sisi's conversations with then-President Mohamed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders—most notably El-Shater. One particular scene focuses on a verbal altercation between Sisi, in his capacity as Minister of Defense, and El-Shater, who threatens the Egyptian army with terrorists that he claims will destroy Egypt.
The political detainees' file in Egypt remains a revolving mirror, reflecting a long-running, complex Egyptian political reality.
- Ahmed Abdelhalim
The one-off series could be explained away if not for Sisi, just a few days after the episode aired in May 2022, hosting a meeting with political, artistic and community elites in what is known as the Egyptian Family Iftar. During the event, he shared behind-the-scenes details of that scene, claiming that El-Shater had debated him for over 40 minutes, pointing his finger at him and threatening Egypt's army. These details, alongside Sisi's constant speeches against the Brotherhood as the "people of evil," highlight the personal adversarial memory that goes beyond mere political and power considerations. The result is clear: entrenched and punitive—or more accurately, humiliating—existence within Egypt's prisons.
Still, over the years, this dynamic transformed, with the regime increasingly considering political and security factors related to the political prisoners. Politically, the authoritarian establishment believes that Islamists cannot be released. Regime survival requires dominance over society, based on the legitimizing narrative undergirding its establishment. In this context, the narrative of the Brotherhood and their leaders—the "people of evil" who destroy Egypt—threatens the army and supports terrorism. In this vein, the coup was a necessity for the people. How can they be released?
Regarding the security context, the regime believes that the release and reintegration of thousands of Islamist leaders and youth from prisons into Egyptian society, where they would discuss the woes of prisons and influence society into opposing the government, constitutes a risk. Cairo fears the potential desire for revenge, given the humiliation and pain experienced after years of torture and imprisonment. Therefore, Cairo prevents any political or movement-based action—peaceful or violent—by blocking their release.
Yet, such reasoning contradicts what many prisoners publicly claim about any potential release. Islamist prisoners—especially the youth—have pledged not to participate in any political or social work that opposes the regime. Instead, most ask for release to continue life away from politics. They want freedom to live a normal life.
As such, many prominent individuals and the initiatives of prisoners' families have repeatedly appealed to the regime for the release of political prisoners. For families openly expressing how the situation has negatively impacted them, the goal is to embrace their loved ones again. Unfortunately, the regime rarely offers a genuine response.
While Cairo has occasionally released some low-level prisoners to date, it excludes Islamists and their leaders. Historically, when an authoritarian system antagonizes a specific group, especially one that ruled or was a partner in ruling, this enmity does not end without the demise of the new authoritarian system. That situation similarly impacted the Muslim Brotherhood during the era of former dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser, with Muslim Brotherhood members and leaders released after Nasser's death upon former President Anwar Sadat's assumption of power, who led a coup against his former political ally.
Thus, the political detainees' file in Egypt remains a revolving mirror, reflecting a long-running, complex Egyptian political reality. While amnesty for prominent political prisoners like Alaa Abdel Fattah represents an important victory for his family, it does not represent a strategic shift—nor a relative one—in regime policy. Similarly, the amnesty has no connection to the increasing Israeli threat on Egypt's border, regarding the issue of displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Rather, Abdel Fattah's release is indicative of an authoritarian system's preference for a policy of selective amnesty when beneficial to the regime. Meanwhile, it maintains a strict security grip, especially concerning political Islam, whose affiliates die and suffer in prisons. Indeed, the regime still views them as the greatest threat. Thus, the detainees' file is a bargaining chip for the regime amid a weak to non-existent political opposition, utilizing it for domestic and foreign policy leverage.
The file of political prisoners and Islamist leaders will likely not shift under Sisi's authoritarian rule, which currently faces no pressure to institute changes amid fake elections like those of Nov. 7. Amid a return of the West's desire for autocratic stability in the Middle East, personified by the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Arab state normalization with Israel, little incentive or interest exists in helping those falsely imprisoned for their political beliefs, the effects of which will come back to harm these very same autocrats in the future.
