“Patrick George” by Mauro Biani (2020)

There has been a concerning rise in Egyptian authorities targeting academics and researchers over the last few years, specifically those who are based abroad upon their return to Egypt. Most recently, historian Alia Mossallam was briefly detained upon arrival at Cairo Airport last month. Mossallam, who lives and works in Berlin, was released on bail following a lengthy interrogation. Egyptian historian Khaled Fahmy tweeted about the situation, stating that the “Egyptian government continues its attack on academic freedom. Last night Alia Mossallam, an Egyptian post-doctoral fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin was detained upon arrival at Cairo airport and interrogated by State Security Prosecution.”  Mona Seif, sister of iconic Egyptian detained activist Alaa Abdel Fattah chimed in as well, and described the incident as part of “Egypt's madness!” 

While Mossallam was released, not all other academics have so treated. Ahmed Samir Santawi, an anthropology MA student at Central European University (CEU), was similarly detained when he arrived at  Cairo Airport in February 2021, but on the 22nd of  June, Ahmed was sentenced to four years in prison, based on charges of spreading false news about the situation in Egypt from abroad. The same month he was charged, Santawi went on a 40-day hunger strike in protest of his detention and charges. 

The detentions of this summer are part of a larger trend of Egyptian authorities detaining Egyptian academics and leveraging similar charges against them. 

• In June 2020, unidentified Egyptian security forces arrested Ahmed Tohamy from his home. Tohamy, a professor of comparative politics at Alexandria University, was accused of belonging to “an unnamed terrorist organization and spreading false information.” He has since been held in pre-trial detention. While Tohamy is an academic in Egypt, not abroad, his treatment can still be seen as part of the occurring pattern.
• Earlier in 2020, on February 7, human rights activist and student at the University of Bologna in Italy Patrick George Zaki was detained at the Cairo Airport when he arrived for a brief trip home. According to the Associated Press, “since his arrest, he has been jailed pending an investigation into accusations of spreading fake news and calling for unauthorized protests.”
• Researcher and journalist Ismail al-Iskandarani was arrested at Hurghada Airport while returning from Germany to Cairo to visit his mother who was unwell in December 2015. On May 22, 2018, Egyptian military court sentenced al-Iskandarani to 10 years in prison on spreading false news regarding national security in Sinai, and his mother has since died during his detention.
• Two days after al-Iskandarani’s court sentencing, on  May 24, 2018, Scholars At Risk Network reported that Walid Salem, a PhD student at the University of Washington, suddenly disappeared after meeting with a Cairo-based law professor. Salem, who later appeared at one of Cairo’s State Security headquarters, was “charged with spreading false news and joining a terrorist group.” While Salem was shortly released in December 2018, he was prevented from leaving Egypt to resume his studies and to visit his young daughter in the United States. Moreover, for more than a year, Salem was “required to check in weekly with state security officials.”

The detention of several academics cannot be separated from the Egyptian government’s recent intention “to establish a specialized database of all Egyptian scientists and senior experts residing outside the country.” Meanwhile, Egyptian Minister of Migration (MOI), Nabila Makram Ebeid, noted that Egyptians who live and study abroad are very vulnerable to being brainwashed. These parallel moves constitute serious grounds for concern around Egypt’s persecution of academics based abroad. Universities in the West should be held accountable for protecting the physical and intellectual freedoms of their students while hosting and publishing their projects. Effective and urgent coalitions between private and public academic institutions should be formed not only to push for releasing researchers who are currently in prison but also to support a safe environment for those who are fortunately still outside. Moreover, the universities should take their students’ concerns seriously while planning for their research and programs even if these concerns would disrupt their relations and interests with Egyptian political authorities and diplomatic delegations.