The National Council for Human Rights published its annual report on Sunday, detailing the state’s work to guarantee Egyptians’ rights and its shortfallings in doing so from July 2024 to June 2025.
The report spotlighted its interventions on behalf of several individual prisoners who are detained in violation of their freedom of expression, attempting to portray the development as a positive indication regarding the council’s performance after it underwent review this year by Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions.
Though GANHRI upheld its classification, critics working in state policy on rights, however, have told Mada Masr that the national council is in a fundamentally “weak” position to uphold Egyptians’ rights, given its subjection to state pressure.
In the view of Hossam Bahgat, founding director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the council’s reporting downplays the scale of ongoing violations. He told Mada Masr that he believes the council could have intervened more forcefully and effectively in several instances to insist on changes to the state’s practices.
Political prisoners’ treatment in detention
The report refers by name to its work on the detention cases of lawyer Huda Abdel Moneim, a former member of the council, translator and illustrator Ashraf Omar, journalist Tawfiq Ghanem, activist and poet Galal al-Beheiry and Islamic scholar and preacher Salah Sultan, who has suffered serious health issues in detention.
Baghgat praised the council’s intervention in these cases as a notable change in its approach compared to previous years. But there is more progress to be made, he added.
The council reports that, as it was informed of concerns about Abdel Moneim’s health and her deprivation of healthcare in detention, it requested and was granted permission to visit her prison and view her medical file.
However, the report failed to mention that council members were prevented from meeting personally with Abdel Moneim, according to Bahgat.
“It’s truly strange that the council would intervene regarding a former member, request to meet with her in prison, as stipulated by its own bylaws, and even go to the prison itself, yet do no more than review her medical file, without any criticism whatsoever,” Bahgat said.
Article 3 of Law 197/2017 includes “visiting prisons and other places of detention, treatment facilities and correctional institutions, and listening to prisoners and residents of the aforementioned places” among the council’s responsibilities.
The issue of poor access to state prisons was mentioned in the council’s GANHRI review this year.
Fielding complaints
The council noted its progress in monitoring violations and handling complaints.
Bahgat told Mada Masr this included improved classification of complaints received, and their referral to the relevant ministries.
The report, in its assessment of the council’s strengths and weaknesses, acknowledges that it failed on occasions, however, to follow up on complaints after their referral to state bodies.
Celebrating due process
Bahgat stated, however, that some of the report’s claims undermine the creation of a culture that promotes authorities’ respect for basic rights.
For example, he said, the report praises the release of detainees such as former presidential candidate Ahmed Tantawi and his campaign manager Mohamed Aboul Diyar, without mentioning that they were released only after serving their sentences.
It also fails to note that they were tried for simply daring to run for the 2023 election, Bahgat added.
Both Tantawi and Aboul Diyar served a year in prison after being convicted in the presidential endorsements case, which halted the former’s attempt to run for president.
Furthermore, in the section on economic and social rights, the council praises the increased allocations for health and education in the general budget. According to Bahgat, this contradicts the president’s public admission that the state is unable to meet the constitutionally mandated allocations for health and education.
Moreover, the council contradicts itself later in the same report, noting the state’s failure to evaluate spending indicators for health and education as an area of weakness.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi asserted in June 2023 that the state was unable to fulfill its constitutional obligations for education and health, asking rhetorically, “Do I have the money for this stuff? Me as in the state, not me as in Abdel Fattah.”
“The necessary figures are not available, folks, and we all need to stay in reality,” he declared in the first explicit admission of his administration’s failure to adhere to its constitutional obligations.
The 2014 Constitution requires that the government allocate at least 6 percent of gross domestic product to education and higher education, and 3 percent to healthcare, starting from the 2016/17 fiscal year. The government circumvents this commitment annually by adopting a different definition of government spending in these sectors.
Beyond these constitutional obligations, Bahgat points out that the NCHR’s section on freedom of failed to mention “any violations related to the inadequate response to sectarian violence, the denial of fundamental constitutional rights to religious minorities such as the Baha’is and other unrecognized sects, or the unprecedented rise in arrests, detentions and prosecutions on charges of blasphemy or calls for religious reform.”
EIPR noted in October that authorities had arrested 40 people during 2025 on the basis of their religious views, including a September campaign that saw 14 people arrested and detained by the Supreme State Security Prosecution.
Righting wrongs in the future?
The council’s report includes a financial statement showing an increase in revenues from LE62 million in FY 2023/24 to LE75 million pounds in FY2024/25.
While Bahgat praised the disclosure of the financial statements for the first time, he argued that these figures show the council should be playing a much larger role in future given the resources at its disposal.
Bahgat also called for the council to take a more prominent role in public discourse. He pointed particularly to the report’s commentary on court fees, which increased this year in a step many defense lawyers denounced as a limitation on defendants’ access to attorneys.
But “[the council] did not announce these reservations during or after the adoption of these exorbitant increases, nor even during the lawyers’ general strike against these negative measures,” Bahgat said.
The council also mentions submitting an “opinion paper” on issues in the asylum law but “to this day, these comments are not published for the Egyptian citizen whom the council works for, nor are they published as a commentary on the issuance of laws, nor are they included in its annual report.”
The new law, rushed through the legislature in 2024, is set to allow asylum-seekers in Egypt a path to citizenship for the first time, but will simultaneously limit their freedoms to join trade unions and travel.
The law’s articles “paint a picture of a refugee life in which no practical activity is allowed,” lawyer Ahmed Moawad, who specializes in asylum cases, previously told Mada Masr.
Bahgat emphasizes the importance of the council using its voice “so that they have an impact, not only on the texts of the legislation but also on the public debate surrounding them.”
The council came under sharp criticism under its former head, Moushira Khattab, whose time at the council’s head was described by lawyer Nasser Amin as the council’s worst performance in two decades.
Following the appointment of a new council leader and a renewed commitment to restoring its role, commenters have been moderately optimistic about the council’s direction.
Bahgat recommends that the council focus in the coming year on combatting the widespread use of remand detention as a preventative measure, using its voice and intervening in ongoing trials.
These steps “will not achieve everything we hope for,” said the EIPR founder, “but at least they will restore the council to the modest level it has been at since its inception.”
About the Author
