New York, December 23, 2016 – Egypt must lift the travel ban imposed on Esraa Abdel Fattah, an Egyptian blogger, columnist, and social media activist, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Abdel Fattah has been under a travel ban for nearly two years, alongside other bloggers and civil society activists who authorities have accused of illegally receiving foreign funding.
Egyptian blogger Esraa Abdel Fattah is appealing a travel ban imposed since 2015. (Esraa Abdel Fattah)
Egyptian blogger Esraa Abdel Fattah is appealing a travel ban imposed since 2015. (Esraa Abdel Fattah)
A Cairo court is due to hear an appeal against the ban January 3, Abdel Fattah told CPJ. She filed the appeal at the administrative court with the help of the Media Legal Defense Initiative, according to a December 16 statement on the group’s website. Two earlier appeals that Abdel Fattah filed in Cairo’s administrative court were unsuccessful, according to news reports.
Security officers at an airport first alerted Abdel Fattah to the travel ban when she tried to leave Egypt in January 2015 to take up a scholarship at Stanford University in the U.S, she said. Abdel Fattah said that she found out a judge issued the order because she allegedly received foreign funding. She said she was not officially informed about the investigation. CPJ and other rights groups have documented how other prominent Egyptians, including press freedom advocate Gamal Eid and investigative journalist Hossam Bahgat, were barred from travel as part of an investigation into foreign funding.
“Egypt could take one concrete step away from authoritarianism by allowing Esraa Abdel Fattah to travel and work freely,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “The Egyptian government’s accusations of illegal funding are clearly an excuse to clamp down on criticism and free expression.”
Abdel Fattah told CPJ that she fears authorities will arrest her and that she has been harassed by police and pro-government supporters after posting a video to her Facebook page in April, criticizing the Egyptian government’s decision to give control over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.
Source: CPJ
