For those killed, imprisoned, tortured and disappeared—and the families still waiting. A human rights report grounded in Egyptian and international documentation, preserving lives and demanding accountability.
Egypt under military rule since the July 2013 coup
On 3 July 2013, the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew elected President Mohamed Morsi. The Republican Guard, al-Manassa, Rabaa and Nahda massacres were followed by mass imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and suppression of independent voices. These violations and the people who endured them are the focus of this report.
Women behind bars: dignity, violence and family separation
Women’s imprisonment must be visible. Amnesty documents torture and sexual violence in state custody. Hoda Abdel Moneim’s case shows the harm of disappearance, isolation and renewed prosecution to a woman defender and her family.
Zubeida and her mother: testimony and the cost of speaking
The mother’s testimony and detention after speaking to the BBC are preserved alongside the daughter’s later appearance and dispute of the disappearance account.
Human Rights Watch and Belady document abuse against children as young as 12: disappearance, torture and detention with adults. Arrest and imprisonment also take away schooling, family life and safety.
Mohamed Walid’s case brings the right to care into sharp focus. EIPR documents serious risks from inaccessible detention, denied treatment and exhausting transfers. His disability does not diminish his dignity or his right to liberty.
Remember the mothers and fathers searching for their children, the families denied visits, and those still waiting for news of the disappeared. Their voices belong at the centre of the record.
Political imprisonment: people behind the estimate
Human Rights Watch reported more than 60,000 people imprisoned in the four years after the 2013 coup. Behind that published estimate are people whose work, education, health and family lives were broken by imprisonment. Prolonged pretrial detention and recycling into new cases extend this harm.
Imprisonment disrupts the lives of doctors, engineers, teachers, academics, students, journalists, lawyers and researchers, and the parents and children who bear separation, visits, searching and waiting.
Lives lost in prisons and detention centres
They are not numbers. Each death is a life cut short and a family deprived of someone they love. Rights organisations document deaths amid medical neglect, torture and dangerous detention conditions. The table preserves the counts and reporting periods recorded by each source; causes require the individual case records.
Committee for Justice documentation; reporting period retained.
Documentation notes and source editions
2013 starts on 30 June; 2019 ends on 1 December. The 2019 source’s annual breakdown does not reconcile with its headline total. The 2025 reports disagree; the search-index-only value is not adopted. The 2026 snapshot stops on 28 September, not 15 October. Other organisations use different case definitions; no cross-source total or rate is shown.
Massacres of protesters and extrajudicial killings
The Republican Guard, al-Manassa, Rabaa and Nahda massacres form a central part of the record of violence after the coup. The investigations below also document killings presented as security operations.
61, 95 and 87 are official figures cited by HRW; 817 is HRW’s documented minimum. These are not all independently verified here.
President Mohamed Morsi: death in the courtroom cage
On 17 June 2019, President Morsi collapsed inside the courtroom cage after years of isolation and denial of adequate care. A UN communication records witnesses saying he was left for about 20 minutes without medical attention. UN experts warned that his treatment could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing.
Giulio Regeni: torture, killing and the struggle for truth
Regeni disappeared on 25 January 2016; his tortured body was found on 3 February. His family’s struggle exposed a wider system of disappearance and violence. The Italian parliamentary inquiry identifies the killing and blaming of five Egyptians as a diversion of the investigation.
“Killed like an Egyptian” — Regeni’s mother, recalling Egyptian friends’ words, 29 March 2016.
Amnesty, HRW and UN mechanisms document enforced disappearance, torture to extract confessions, denial of contact with families and lawyers, and deprivation of medical care. Secret detention deepens families’ suffering and removes victims from protection and accountability.
Prolonged pretrial detention and recycling into new cases turn detention into indefinite imprisonment. Reports document mass trials, violations of defence rights, death sentences after unfair proceedings and the prosecution of opponents under counterterrorism laws.
Repression continues: journalists and families in 2026
The arrest of the Matsadaash newsroom, prosecution of peaceful critics and prolonged imprisonment of rights defenders show how repression reaches journalists, families and civil society. Read the dated investigations and the October updates below.
Human rights investigations, international documents and victims’ testimony
47 records
NGO documentationHRW-RABAA
All According to Plan: The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt
Human Rights Watch ·
HRW investigated six protest killings in July–August 2013. It documented a minimum of 817 killed at Rabaa and assessed the attacks as likely crimes against humanity.
Source notes
The report documents killings of protesters in six incidents in July and August 2013. The minimum of 817 killed refers specifically to Rabaa.
UN experts addressed Mohamed Morsi’s isolation and denial of treatment for diabetes and hypertension, and their possible contribution to his death during a court hearing on 17 June 2019.
Source notes
A UN communication raising concerns about denial of treatment and the need to investigate the circumstances of death and establish accountability.
Officially, you do not exist — disappeared and tortured in the name of counter-terrorism
Amnesty International ·
Amnesty documented accounts of enforced disappearance and torture involving the National Security Agency, and failures to investigate coerced confessions.
Source notes
NGO investigation. Disappearance is not proof of death; a later prosecutor appearance must be recorded as an update.
Country policy and information note: opposition to the state, Egypt, March 2026 — version 5.0
UK Home Office ·
The Home Office assesses risks facing perceived opponents and documents restrictions on expression, protest and fair-trial rights. The page was updated on 14 August 2026.
Source notes
Government country-policy assessment drawing on multiple sources; not an individual asylum decision or independent verification of every cited incident.
HRW’s 2026 edition reviews repression, prison conditions and fair-trial concerns during 2025. The report year must not be mistaken for the year of its events.
Source notes
NGO annual review; publication day not supplied on the retrieved chapter. Use dated sources for 2026 developments.
Radio Radicale; recording of I Corte di Assise di Roma hearing ·
A hearing record reports three ten-year kidnapping convictions; Sabir was acquitted of kidnapping, and Sharif of the additional injury and murder counts.
Source notes
First-instance outcome or procedural record; signed merits judgment and appeal filings not retrieved. Transliteration varies.
Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana / Corte Costituzionale ·
An official Italian constitutional ruling concerns defence-consultant expenses in the absent-defendant proceeding. It is procedural, not the September verdict on guilt.
Source notes
First-instance outcome or procedural record; signed merits judgment and appeal filings not retrieved. Transliteration varies.
Refugees and asylum seekers: arrests and deportations
Human Rights Watch ·
HRW reported arrests and deportations amid residency-renewal delays, including UNHCR-registered people. Its interviews do not establish a national total.
Source notes
Source-attributed assessment at publication; later status is not established here. Charges are not findings of guilt.
HRW challenged the official shootout account in two Marsa Matrouh deaths, citing evidence the men had surrendered and were in custody.
Source notes
Rights documentation concerning two men killed after evidence that they surrendered and were in custody; this incident is kept separate from cumulative totals.
The Committee against Torture raised concerns about counterterrorism laws, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance and detainees’ access to lawyers.
Source notes
Treaty-body observations and recommendations, not individual criminal verdicts. See paragraphs 11–16.
Hoda Abdel Moneim: a daughter in exile, a mother imprisoned
Human Rights Watch / Amr Magdi ·
HRW records Hoda Abdel Moneim’s disappearance, isolation and renewed prosecution after completing her sentence. Her daughter describes the lasting harm of their separation.
Source notes
Read the source for its interview base, dates and evidentiary scope.
Mohamed Walid: detention continued despite severe disability and health risks
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights ·
EIPR, part of the defence team, describes severe disability, denial of necessary treatment and exhausting transfers. Arrested at 19, Walid is an adult; three co-defendants are children.
Source notes
Status as reported on 11 August 2026; no outcome of the scheduled 14 October hearing is verified here.
Morsi’s death followed isolation, mistreatment and inadequate medical care
Human Rights Watch ·
HRW describes years of isolation, mistreatment and inadequate medical care before Morsi died in the courtroom cage. He had diabetes and had previously reported diabetic comas.
Source notes
Read the source for its interview base, dates and evidentiary scope.
Parliamentary inquiry: five Egyptians killed and falsely blamed in the Regeni case
Camera dei deputati — parliamentary inquiry commission ·
The Italian parliamentary inquiry describes the killing of five men and their instrumental blaming for Regeni’s abduction as a diversion of the investigation. See printed page 196.
Source notes
Parliamentary findings; distinct from a criminal conviction against an identified officer.
AFP reports the mother’s detention after her BBC interview. Her daughter subsequently publicly disputed the disappearance account; the original testimony and later development must be read together.
Source notes
The mother’s account is testimony, not an independently established finding of rape or disappearance. Do not describe the daughter as currently missing.
Jewar reports 1,090 women held at 10th of Ramadan Prison, Rehabilitation 4
Jewar Relief — attributed post by Abdelrahman al-Badrawi ·
Jewar’s news feed reports 1,090 women held in Rehabilitation 4 at 10th of Ramadan Prison. The figure concerns this facility, not a nationwide political-prisoner census.
Source notes
14 September is the date displayed in Jewar’s feed. No underlying counting methodology or per-person political classification is supplied there. The linked Facebook post could not be retrieved.
Britain Should Be Championing Rights Not Repression in Egypt
Human Rights Watch ·
HRW reported upwards of 60,000 people imprisoned during the previous four years under Sisi, alongside widespread torture and suppression of protest.
Source notes
A published estimate in September 2017 covering the preceding four years; do not turn it into a verified current headcount or a count of recycled cases.
The supplied aohr.net redirected to an unrelated shop during checks. It is excluded as an evidence link. aohrarab.com identifies itself as the Arab Organization for Human Rights; it is listed as a separate, checked directory, not silently substituted.
Sources & documentation notes
Sources, dates and document editions remain available for readers and researchers. Statements by survivors and families retain their attribution. We preserve the distinction between an investigation’s findings and a court’s specific ruling, and correct the record when new documents appear.
Corrections: cite the record ID, disputed wording and supporting source when contacting the institutional publisher through its existing channel. Accepted changes must retain a dated correction note. Publication is not legal adjudication.
Only necessary, reliably public case information is included. No private addresses or identity numbers are published. No analytics or tracking cookies are added by this library.
