NEW YORK (Dec. 12, 2025) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) received a favorable opinion from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), finding Egypt’s detention of human rights defender Ahmed Amasha arbitrary under international human rights law.
Amasha is a human rights advocate, environmentalist, and veterinarian best known for campaigning against the Agrium petrochemical plant in his hometown, Damietta. A member of the Kefaya opposition movement, also known as the Egyptian Movement for Change, Amasha founded the League of the Families of the Disappeared, which has brought national and international attention to enforced disappearances in Egypt. As secretary-general of the Defending the Oppressed Association within the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, he has advocated for freedom of speech in one of the world’s most repressive media environments.
Amasha’s activism has repeatedly made him a regime target. He was first arrested during the Arab Spring protests in 2011. In March 2017, he was again arrested and forcibly disappeared, prompting the WGAD to call for his immediate release. He was released without trial in October 2019.
Less than a year later, in June 2020, the police again arrested Amasha in his home in Cairo and took him blindfolded to an unknown location. After 26 days of enforced disappearance, Amasha resurfaced before the office of the Supreme State Security Prosecution bearing marks of torture. In August 2022, after more than two years in pretrial detention in the notorious high-security Tora Prison, where he was denied medical care, adequate food, and access to sunlight, he was charged with terrorism for his human rights work. Since September 2022, Amasha has been held in Badr Prison under harsh conditions, including solitary confinement, continuous electric lighting, and 24-hour camera surveillance. His trial has continued for three years without an end in sight.
HRF submitted a petition on Amasha’s behalf to the WGAD in July 2024.
“Ahmed Amasha’s detention for more than five years without any sentence — marked by torture, enforced disappearance, and denial of basic legal rights — exemplifies the Egyptian regime’s systematic persecution of human rights defenders,” said HRF Senior Legal Associate Venla Stang. “Counter-terrorism legislation and specialized courts have become everyday tools to silence dissent, but what makes Amasha’s case especially concerning is its retributive nature. The reason for his treatment lies simply in his long-term work fearlessly raising Egypt’s human rights issues despite repeated attacks. Now, he is once again experiencing those violations firsthand.”
In its decision, the WGAD found that Amasha is detained because of the exercise of his freedom of opinion and expression, his freedom of association, and his work as a human rights defender. The WGAD identified several violations of due process, emphasizing that no government can hide behind its domestic legal framework if its laws fail to conform to its obligations under international human rights law.
HRF joins the WGAD in calling for Ahmed Amasha’s immediate release and urges the international community to hold the Egyptian regime accountable for its widespread and institutionalized repression of peaceful dissent and human rights advocacy.
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.
Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Hit enter to search or ESC to close
