Egypt: Muzzling Dissidents, Narrowing Civic Space

4 February 2026
Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC)
press release

Beirut — Authorities Restricting Basic Freedoms, Eroding Economic Rights

The Egyptian authorities during 2025 systematically dismantled basic freedoms and suffocated civic space, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026. Economic crises, coupled with authorities' underfunding of public services like education and health care, undermined people's socioeconomic rights.

"The Egyptian authorities have kept a chokehold over the country this past year, with rights defenders, journalists, and activists imprisoned," said Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities are crushing peaceful dissent with impunity and at the same time failing in their basic duty to manage the economy in a way that fulfills people's rights."

In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.

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  • Parliamentary elections in August, November, and December, the third under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, were held under an environment of severe repression and in the absence of genuine competition, ensuring parliament will remain a rubber-stamp institution.
  • Twenty-three journalists were in jail as of May 30 according to the head of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate, most in prolonged pretrial detention.
  • Authorities detained and prosecuted dozens of social media influencers and content creators in a renewed mass-arrest campaign that began in July, targeting mainly women based on abusive morality charges.
  • In May, trials began for some 6,000 people whom Supreme State Security Prosecution had referred to trial in recent months in "terrorism" cases, more than half of whom had been in pretrial detention for months or years.
  • Millions continued to live in or near poverty, facing soaring inflation without adequate social security measures. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch analysis of the state budget from 2021/2022 to 2025/2026 found that spending on education and healthcare fell below both constitutional requirements and international benchmarks.

The authorities should end their repression of speech and civic space. They should establish an independent committee to review the situation of thousands of jailed political opponents, protesters, journalists, and activists who have been languishing in jails for years and release everyone unlawfully detained. They should also appropriately increase spending on education and health and establish universal social security for all.

Read the original article on HRW.

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