Coptic minority rights defender and documentarian
"I wrote down what was done to my people. That was the whole crime."HuMENA Editorial
Egyptian Coptic Christian human rights defender released in January 2022 after more than two years of pre-trial detention. Charges in Case 1475/2019 have never been formally dropped.
Ramy Kamel is a documentary photographer, researcher and one of the most consistent Egyptian voices on the rights of the Coptic Christian minority. Through the Maspero Youth Union and later as an independent researcher, he chronicled sectarian attacks on Coptic villages in Upper Egypt — church burnings, mob violence, forced displacement — and brought those cases before the United Nations. In November 2019 he was invited to address the UN Forum on Minority Issues in Geneva.
Before he could travel, on the night of 23 November 2019, security forces raided his home in the Shubra district of Cairo. He was held for several days at an undisclosed location, then transferred to Tora maximum-security prison and added to State Security Case 1475/2019. He was charged with joining and financing a terrorist group and broadcasting false information — accusations he and his lawyers have always insisted were a direct reprisal for his planned UN testimony and his work documenting violence against Copts.
He spent the next two years and two months in pre-trial detention, much of it in solitary confinement. He suffered repeated asthma attacks that went largely untreated. On 8 January 2022 he was released without explanation. There was no verdict, no acquittal and no formal dismissal of charges — only an executive decision to set him free under precautionary measures. His name was not removed from the case file and the prosecution's underlying allegations remained on the record.
He has remained in Egypt since his release. He has slowly resumed limited documentation work, though he no longer travels abroad and avoids interviews with foreign media. The 2019 case has never been formally closed, and his health — particularly his chronic asthma — has not fully recovered from the conditions of his detention. He has not been re-arrested as of mid-2026.
This case file was compiled by HuMENA's Egypt research team from primary documentation, public filings, family-supplied legal documents, and confidential partner reporting. Editorial responsibility rests with the HuMENA Editorial Board. Where dates or facts are uncertain, the record errs on the side of the source material and notes uncertainty in the live archive at humena.org.
HuMENA welcomes corrections, additions, and take-down requests from the defender, their family, or accredited representatives. Material discrepancies are typically addressed within 72 hours.
Editorial · editorial@humena.org
Take-downs & corrections · takedowns@humena.org
Partner submissions (confidential) · partners@humena.org