Over the course of two years of Israel’s war of aggression and ensuing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and until the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit was convened to agree on a durable ceasefire;  the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) documented the arrest and prosecution of at least 200 people in 20 cases before the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP). All of them were arrested and investigated for expressing their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their rejection of the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli occupation, which has claimed the lives of more than 68,000 people according to the lowest estimates, in addition to more than 11,000 missing persons.

In October 2025, the prosecution released 29 people involved in three of cases opened against supporters of Palestine, while 131 remain in open pretrial detention in connection with 14 cases, including at least four who were arrested as minors (under the age of 18), a young man with a disability in his late twenties, and an elderly woman over the age of 67. All of the activists face charges under the Anti-Terrorism Law, while some face charges under the Assembly Law No. 10 for the year 1914, enacted during the British occupation of Egypt and still in force despite the  enactment of a new law governing protests and assemblies in 2013.

The background to these arrests and investigations is that almost immediately after the outbreak of war, specifically on October 18, 2023, President Sisi stated in a joint press conference with the German Chancellor that millions of Egyptians were prepared to protest to demonstrate their rejection of attempts to displace Palestinians from Gaza. The president’s statement encouraged many to demonstrate between October 20 and 27 to show their support for the Palestinian cause. However, security forces apparently ignored the president's statement, which naturally elicited a popular response, and arrested dozens of people in various governorates for doing just that - protesting in solidarity with the Palestinians subjected to a war of aggression and mounting ethnic cleansing. Those arrested were referred to the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) and charged in  cases 2468/2023, 2469/2023, and 2635/2023. Although a number of defendants in the aforementioned cases have been released pending trial, 38 people remain in custody since October 2023, which means that they have exceeded the legal maximum period of pretrial detention set by Article 143 of the Code of Criminal Procedure at two years, and therefore their release has become mandatory.

In an unexpected turn of events, in April 2025 the name of opposition politician and former presidential candidate Ahmed Tantawi was added to the charge sheets of two of the cases that have been open since 2023. in, SSSP summoned him from his prison cell at the time, just when he was about to finish serving his one-year prison sentence that he served for convinction in case 2094/ 2024, Misdemeanor Appeals, Matariya, registered under No. 2255/ 2023, Supreme State Security Investigations, more commonly known as the "Popular (Election Forms) Case." and investigated him before his release on bail in the two Palestine solidarity cases e (no. 2468 of 2023, and case no. 2635/ 2023, Supreme State Security Docket). The investigations were solely based on a preliminary investigation report submitted by the National Security Sector (State Security).   The prosecution confronted Tantawi with a post he made on Facebook on October 17, 2023, in which he had expressed his complete rejection of the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and demanded that the Egyptian people be allowed to "express all forms of solidarity and support due to the Palestinian people." Tantawi emphasized that this was very much in line with President Sisi's statements.  

Even those who  avoided demonstrating and opted for other, supposedly safer forms of  symbolic solidarity, such as raising banners were not spared. The first year of the war, specifically in April 2024, saw the arrest of at least six people, including two children, who remain imprisoned in poor detention conditions pending investigations in case 952/ 2024, Supreme State Security Docket, for writing slogans in support of Palestine on the Dar al-Salam Bridge in Cairo. In Alexandria, Shadi Mohamed, a labor unionist and founding member of the Permanent Conference of Alexandria Workers, and five other young people involved in the activities of the Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People, were arrested allegedly for raising a banner reading "Lift the siege on Palestine, release the detainees, and open the Rafah crossing." The six have been detained for more than a year and a half in connection with Case No. 1644/ 2024, Supreme State Security Docket, without any objective legal justification for their detention. 

The second year of the war saw the arrest of at least 20 people in May 2025, who were detained pending trial in Case No. 3562/ 2025, after some of them hung banners in support of Palestine. , The arrests included Seif al-Din Adel (Bachelor of Engineering, 24 years old) and lawyer Seif Mamdouh, who was arrested from his office located on the same street where Seif al-Din Adel lives. It should be noted that the case includes other friends of the defendants (accused of participating in hanging banners in support of Palestine). Some of them were part of a closed WhatsApp chat group but did not participate in any actions or actually engage in any acts of solidarity apart from their membership in the WhatsApp group.

In June 2025, six people were arrested, including a 67-year-old doctor suffering from a list of illnesses, including high blood pressure and diabetes.  SSSP ordered their detention pending investigation in case No. 4880/2025, on charges of joining a terrorist group and spreading false news. Investigations were conducted with the defendants that focused on their presence in a closed group on a social media platform, and discussing the possibility of their joining the "Global March to Gaza" formed by activists and health workers from different countries to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip. The prosecution questioned some of the defendants about the convoy, its objectives and its purpose. In contrast, the defendants asserted that they had complied with Egyptian law and had not committed any crime, and that they had not actually joined the convoy, especially after the Egyptian authorities had not issued security approvals for it.

It is worth noting that all those detained in connection with the aforementioned cases continue to have their detention renewed via video conference during routine, boilerplate hearings before the SSSP or, later, the deliberation chamber of the Criminal Court convened at the Badr Security Complex, as not a single decision to release them has been issued in any of these hearings. The detention of defendants is seemingly automatically renewed without serious and genuine consideration of their cases. Whether the videolink with the prison (from where the defendants attend their hearings) was successful or not; detention was renewed invariably in the absence of the defendants, without any communication between the judge and the defendant or between the defendant and his lawyers defense, who in most cases is unable to present his arguments or appropriately communicate with the defendant. EIPR emphasizes that the numbers of detainees referred to here are only an approximation, given that the Supreme State Security Prosecution has previously issued decisions to release some defendants without their legal defence being informed of the decision or contacted.

EIPR calls on Attorney General Mohamed Shawki to immediately release the 131 individuals detained in connection with 14 State Security cases, who remain in custody despite the absence of evidence that they committed any crime, and despite the absence of grounds for pre-trial detention as stipulated in Article 134 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. EIPR  demands the dismissal of all charges against those who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, numbering at least 197 (in pre-trial detention or released from custody) who are being prosecuted in 19 different SSSP investigations . EIPR emphasizes that it is illogical to bring terrorism charges against this number of citizens who have not committed any crime related to terrorism.  Their only crime was exercising their constitutional right to peacefully express their opinion in a mostly symbolic attempt to support the Palestinian cause and reject the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza. Not only is this a constitutionally protected right, its is very much in line with the statements of the President who has affirmed on more than one occasion that Egypt is "a defender of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."