مؤسسة سيناء لحقوق الإنسان - NGOs demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ibrahim Metwally, detained solely for peacefully exercising his human rights

04 Jun 2025

NGOs demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ibrahim Metwally, detained solely for peacefully exercising his human rights

04 يونيو 2025

We, the undersigned human rights organizations, express our grave concern regarding the prolonged arbitrary detention of 61-year-old Ibrahim Metwally since 10 September 2017, and his recent indictment in three cases at once on terrorism charges, solely for his human rights activism including his efforts to seek truth and justice for his forcibly disappeared son. Mr. Metwally’s first trial started on 1 June, and his second trial is set to start on 11 June. No date has been set yet for his trial under the third case.

Mr. Metwally was arrested by Egyptian security forces at Cairo International Airport on his way to Geneva, where he was invited to attend the 113th session of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to discuss enforced disappearances in Egypt. Following his arrest, he was held incommunicado for two days until he appeared before the Supreme State Security Prosecutor (SSSP) in Cairo. He told his lawyers that during this period, National Security Agency (NSA) officers stripped him naked, gave him electric shocks in various parts of his body, doused him in water, and beat him, in violation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment.

Ibrahim Metwally was initially held in pre-trial detention pending investigations into charges of communicating with “foreign entities” and spreading “false news” under case No.900 of 2017. For 25 months he was held in solitary confinement and denied family and lawyers visits. In October 2019 the prosecution ordered his release, but he was disappeared once again for 20 days, then the SSSP opened a new criminal case against him, namely case No.1470 of 2019, and after the prosecution ordered his release once again in August 2020, he found himself facing similar charges in case No.786 of 2020. Since then he has been kept in pretrial detention pending the same case. This abusive practice referred to as “rotation” has been systematically used by the authorities against critics to keep them in pre-trial detention indefinitely, in contravention of Egyptian law which sets two years as the maximum permissible period for pre-trial detention.

In September and October 2024, the Egyptian authorities referred Mr. Metwally to trial in cases No.900 of 2017 and No. 1470 of 2019, respectively, on charges of “joining a group that was founded in violation of the law and committing a crime of funding terrorism”, among others. He was consequently also indicted in Case No. 786 of 2020. His lawyers have not been granted access to his case files to date.

In June 2022, after five years in Tora Prison Complex, Mr. Metwally was transferred to Badr 3 prison where he remains. Mr. Metwally suffers from multiple health conditions, including an enlarged prostate which requires urgent surgical intervention according to a urologist. On 4 December 2024, his family submitted a request to the SSSP to approve his transfer to a specialized hospital outside the prison to undergo an urgent prostate surgery. The family’s request remains unanswered.

On 15 January 2025, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders issued a statement condemning the use of anti-terrorism legislation to imprison human rights defenders. In her statement, she highlighted the prolonged arbitrary detention of Mr. Metwally as well as the Egyptian authorities’ denial of adequate healthcare. Last week, the Special Rapporteur reiterated her concern over Mr. Metwally’s trial on "recycled charges, including apparent interaction with UN HR mechanisms”, which she described as “a misuse of anti-terrorism laws”. UN Special Procedures have consistently raised Mr. Metwally’s case in several communications to the Government of Egypt. In August 2019, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an Opinion finding that Mr. Metwally’s detention was arbitrary, and noting that his detention amounts to an act of retaliation for cooperation with the United Nations. The Working Group considered that Metwally should be released immediately and receive compensation and other reparations. In June 2022, in its list of issues issued relating to Egypt's implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Human Rights Committee requested Egypt to provide information on the cases of Mr. Metwally.

The former Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and senior official on the issue of reprisals mentioned the case of Mr. Metwally as “one of the emblematic, possibly the most emblematic, of all cases of reprisals”. Mr. Metwally’s case has been consistently mentioned in the reports of the Secretary-General on cooperation with the UN in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Several States raised the case of Mr. Metwally in their statements at the Human Rights Council including Germany, BENLUX (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands), United Kingdom, and Liechtenstein.

The undersigned organizations demand the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Ibrahim Metwally, as he is detained solely for peacefully exercising his human rights.

Signatories:

1. Amnesty International

2. Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)

3. Center for Civil Liberties

4. Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD)

5. Committee for Justice (CFJ)

6. DAWN, Washington D.C.

7. DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project) - Kampala, Uganda

8. Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms

9. Egyptian Front for Human Rights

10. Egyptian Human Rights Forum ( EHRF)

11. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Egypt