African Children’s Rights Committee Admits Case of Tortured Egyptian Child

The Committee for Justice (CFJ), the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights (SFHR), and the Kennedy Human Rights Center (KHRC) welcome the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’s (ACERWC) recently publicized April 2026 decision declaring admissible the case challenging the arbitrary detention and torture of an Egyptian child, Bahaa El-Din Fathy Mohamed Maher Ismail Khalil. Now that the ACERWC has declared Bahaa’s case admissible, the case will proceed to the merits stage, where the Committee will examine the parties’ arguments and issue a final decision on the facts. Notably, this admissibility decision marks the first time that a case against Egypt at the ACERWC has proceeded to the merits stage.

Bahaa El-Din was arrested and forcibly disappeared by Egyptian National Security Agency officers in September 2024, when he was 16 years old. The officers provided no justification for his arrest and immediately took him to an unknown location. While detained, Egyptian security officers stripped him, beat him, and tortured him, including by subjecting him to electric shocks. Bahaa was held incommunicado for over three months, without any access to his lawyer or his family. During this period of incommunicado detention, authorities also placed him in solitary confinement for 45 days. 

In January 2025, Bahaa was finally brought before the prosecution at Al-Arish First Police Station, where he was accused, without evidence, of joining and financing a terrorist organization, as well as taking photos and videos of a military building. Following this first appearance, he was transferred to the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP), where he was again tortured and forced to make incriminating statements. After his time at the SSSP, Bahaa was transferred to a local police station for detention, where authorities continued to deny his family visitation rights. Bahaa remains in pretrial detention, although now in a local prison. The first hearing in his trial in Egypt is currently scheduled for later this month.

Besides creating an opportunity for justice in Bahaa's case, the ACERWC’s admissibility decision creates an important precedent for future litigation at the ACERWC and in the African human rights system more broadly. The decision upholds CFJ, SFHR, and KHRC’s position that Egypt's treaty reservation to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (the Charter), a clause in Egypt’s acceptance of the Charter aimed at preventing cases from being brought against it at the ACERWC, is invalid under international law and that local remedies in Egypt are ineffective and unduly prolonged. 

"Bahaa's case is not an isolated incident، rather, it reflects a broader pattern of violations affecting children in the context of detention and security-related proceedings in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula,” said Iman Gad, Head of the Documentation and Monitoring Unit at the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights. “The African Committee's decision marks an important step toward accountability and justice, while also offering hope to child victims and their families that grave violations against children should not go unpunished."

“The decision puts a spotlight on the human rights challenges in Egypt and highlights how this impacts children,” said Ikechukwu Uzoma, Senior Staff Attorney for Africa at KHRC. “Justice delivery systems in Egypt and across the continent must operate with a sensitivity for vulnerable populations, especially children.”

“This decision is a meaningful step toward reinforcing the protection of children’s rights and safeguards in security-related proceedings. It also highlights the need for timely, effective, and child-sensitive remedies when serious allegations of torture, incommunicado detention, and denial of due process are raised,” said Usame Mehmetoglu, Regional Officer at CFJ. 

The ACERWC’s admissibility decision follows CFJ, SFHR, and KHRC’s November 2025 request for the Committee to review Bahaa’s case. 

CFJ, SFHR, and KHRC call on the ACERWC to determine the case on the merits in a timely manner and continue to call on Egypt to release Bahaa from his arbitrary detention.