“Prison and prisoners’ issues” remain largely compartmentalized (as the phrase itself demonstrates) within mainstream public discourse, reserved as a topic of discussion for those in specialized fields such as law and social work. This practice of isolating and decontextualizing the matter of imprisonment, however, perpetuates the marginalization of detainees not only within society, but also within social consciousness. Perhaps the most obvious driver of this phenomenon can be summarized by the adage, “out of sight, out of mind.” The spatial separation and physical absence of prisoners—and, to an even greater extent, the missing and disappeared—facilitate the disregard and disengagement with which their experiences are treated in both official narratives and broader cultural conversations. It is for this reason that countless former detainees have written and spoken in depth about the fear and pain of being forgotten.  
 
A second factor of course is the stigma that societies across the region and the world still attach to incarceration, and project upon current and former prisoners. Pervasive messaging has encouraged the collective imagination to identify those held in places of detention as “criminals” and “terrorists,” and to perceive them less as individuals than as “threats to society” who “deserve” to be deprived of their liberty. Indeed, the dehumanization of prisoners and the depersonalization of their distinctive character and circumstances have long accompanied the ‘prisonization’ of societies throughout time and space.
 
Raising the profile of detainees and making their experience of detention visible to ordinary citizens thus requires out-of-the-box thinking and innovative and compelling initiatives, such as the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms’ (ECRF) “Detainees’ Registry.” Available in both Arabic and English, this project features the name, photo, and brief case description of 100 men and women being held as political prisoners in detention facilities across Egypt. By making these sketches available to the general public, ECRF is chipping away at the physical and psychological barriers that have been constructed to disconnect and detach detainees from those outside the prison walls, and vice versa. Egyptian authorities have deliberately made these individuals as inaccessible as possible, denying humanitarian organizations and monitors access to places of detention; refusing to grant family visits and consultations with legal counsel; and forcibly disappearing hundreds of detainees— all of which is intended, in part, to prevent their stories from reaching others. Efforts like the “Detainees’ Registry,” however, serve to counteract this state-sanctioned silencing by making people aware of those whom President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wishes to keep anonymous.
 
The “Detainees’ Registry” also challenges the false stereotypes with which prisoners are routinely marked. The men and women included within its pages have been detained for no other reason than peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. It is therefore particularly significant that the Registry highlights the ways in which their arrest, detention, and judicial proceedings violate not only international human rights law, but also the Egyptian constitution and penal code. In doing so, ECRF reminds us that the discursive concept of “crime” is highly subjective, vulnerable to distortion and manipulation, and often made malleable to conform and cater to socio-political events and interests.
 
We cannot claim that these 100 men and women—and the tens of thousands of others whose experiences they symbolize—do not exist, that arbitrary and unlawful detention is not taking place, or that we did not know. Rather, we would all do well to heed the call of physician, poet, and former political detainee, Ahmed Said, who—on the Registry’s dedication page—invites us to “Read the names of the companions/ Each and every one of them.”