Ibrahim Ezz El-Din

Background and Work

Ibrahim Ezz El-Din trained as an architectural planning engineer. His professional expertise in urban planning led him to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, one of Egypt's few remaining independent human rights organisations, where he worked as a researcher documenting forced evictions and violations of the right to housing.

His work focused on communities facing demolition orders, families displaced by infrastructure projects, and informal settlements targeted for clearance without adequate notice or compensation. In a country where an estimated 40 per cent of the urban population lives in informal housing, this documentation carried significant risks.

Arrest and Enforced Disappearance

On 12 June 2019, Egyptian security forces arrested Ibrahim Ezz El-Din in the Mokattam area of Cairo and took him to an unknown location. No arrest warrant was shown to him or his family. No notification was given of where he was being held or on what grounds.

The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms filed a case with the Administrative Court of Cairo seeking information about his whereabouts. The first hearing was scheduled for 3 September 2019 and later rescheduled to 16 November 2019. Throughout this period, Ibrahim Ezz El-Din remained disappeared.

He reappeared on 26 November 2019, 167 days after his arrest, brought before the State Public Prosecution in Cairo. Prosecutors immediately linked him to case No. 488 of 2019, charging him with spreading false news, belonging to a terrorist group, and misuse of social media. The Public Prosecution ordered his detention for fifteen days pending investigation.

Prolonged Pre-Trial Detention

Between December 2019 and April 2022, Ibrahim Ezz El-Din was held in prolonged pre-trial detention. Prosecutors renewed his detention repeatedly in cycles of fifteen and forty-five days. On 4 December 2019 the Supreme Public Prosecution renewed his detention for fifteen days. On 4 March 2020 it renewed for another fifteen days. On 5 May 2020 the Criminal Court of Cairo renewed his detention alongside three other human rights defenders for forty-five days.

On 27 December 2020, the Criminal Court of Cairo issued an order for his release. The order was never implemented. Instead, on 2 January 2021, the State Public Prosecutor added him to a new case, No. 1018 of 2021, on charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, and ordered his detention for an additional fifteen days. The cycle of renewals continued.

Detention Conditions

Ibrahim Ezz El-Din was held in pre-trial detention facilities in Cairo. During the initial months of his enforced disappearance, his family had no access to him and no information about his location or condition. After his formal appearance before prosecutors in November 2019, he entered the regular detention system, though family visit access remained restricted and subject to frequent denials.

Release

On 12 April 2022, Ibrahim Ezz El-Din was released as part of a series of pardons issued by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The pardon was unrelated to the December 2020 court order that had never been enforced. He had spent nearly three years in detention, the vast majority of it without trial, for research work on housing rights that posed no threat to public safety.