The U.S. sends Egypt billions in aid. Fearing extinction, rights activists hope Biden will act. Saphora Smith and Yasmine Salam and Abigail Williams © Provided by NBC News
Jess Kelly said she knew her husband, Karim Ennarah, was not OK as soon as he spoke to her on the telephone from Egypt.
Ennarah, 37, a human rights campaigner, had called late Nov. 16 to warn her that police had been at his mother’s house in Cairo looking to arrest him, she told NBC News.
“He cried a few times, and said he was sorry that he hadn’t tried to leave sooner,” she said, speaking from London.
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In February 2020, as he arrived back in Cairo to visit family, Patrick Zaky, a Masters student at Bologna University, was arrested by Egyptian authorities. Zaky, a researcher of gender rights for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), was detained on charges including “spreading false news” and “an incitement to protest”. His lawyer, Wael Ghally, claimed he was “beaten and tortured”. Ten months on, he is still being held in prison, awaiting his pre-trial hearing.
Then, after a meeting with 13 European ambassadors and diplomats on the state of human rights in Egypt, three more of EIPR’s staff were arrested between 15 and 19 November. EIPR’s administrative manager, Mohamed Basheer, its executive director, Gasser Abdel Razek, and its criminal justice director, Karim Ennarah, were accused of “terrorism” and “spreading false news”.