The fourth State Security case against El-Massry since 2019 reflects a pattern of systematic targeting of human rights defenders.

Egyptian human rights lawyer and former political prisoner Mahienour El-Massry has been officially summoned to appear as a “defendant” before the Supreme State Security Prosecution in Fifth Settlement tomorrow, August 18th.

According to the notice delivered to her family, El-Massry will be interrogated in connection with Case No. 6322/2025 (Supreme State Security). The summons provided no details regarding the nature or subject of the case. Her family received the notice at their home in Alexandria in the early hours of Sunday, August 17th, despite the document being dated more than three days earlier, on August 14th.

This new summons continues a long pattern of repeated prosecutions against El-Massry, stretching back to 2019.

In September 2019, El-Massry was abducted outside the premises of the Supreme State Security Prosecution in New Cairo after completing her professional duties. She later appeared before the same prosecution office as a defendant in Case No. 488/2019 (State Security), accused of joining a terrorist organisation, spreading false news, and misusing social media. At that time, the prosecution ordered her pre-trial detention.

In August 2020, while still in custody, she was summoned again by the prosecution and interrogated in a second case (No. 855/2020), facing once more the charge of “joining a terrorist group ”. Her pre-trial detention continued until July 2021, when she and others were ordered released.

In April 2024, El-Massry was arrested once more, together with at least 18 other individuals,most of them women activists,during a peaceful women’s vigil outside the regional headquarters of UN Women. The demonstration was held in solidarity with women in Palestine and Sudan, and to demand an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. After more than 24 hours in custody, the Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered the release of El-Massry and the others on bail, pending investigation in Case No. 1567/2024 (State Security), on charges of violating anti-terrorism laws.

El-Massry’s international standing is widely recognised: in 2014 she received the French Ludovic Trarieux Human Rights Prize,. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Prize, along with Afghan and Yemeni activists, with the award ceremony scheduled to take place in Italy. A month before her intended travel, she enquired at the Public Prosecutor’s Office to ensure her status was clear and was given no indication of a travel ban. However, Cairo International Airport security officers informed her that she was barred from travel by order of the Public Prosecutor, a ban that remains in force, without explanation, depriving her of her constitutional right to freedom of movement.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a member of her legal defence team, expresses its concern at the repeated prosecutions brought against Mahienour El-Massry in different cases, and at her continuing travel ban, imposed solely for her commitment to exercising her profession as a human rights lawyer and her insistence on her constitutional right to free expression.

The EIPR urges the Public Prosecution to immediately drop all outstanding cases against El-Massry, lift the arbitrary travel ban, and put an end to the judicial harassment that has deprived her of her basic rights for years.