Egypt detains top Sinai expert and journalist Ismail Alexandrani, say lawyers
Egypt detains top Sinai expert and journalist Ismail Alexandrani, say lawyers
Egyptian researcher and journalist Ismail Alexandrani was arrested on Wednesday at a checkpoint in Matrouh governorate and subsequently appeared before Egypt’s Supreme State Security Prosecution, according to lawyers.
Alexandrani is one of Egypt’s best-known researchers, specialising in the conflict in Sinai and the rights of marginalised groups there.
He previously served seven years in prison between 2015 and 2022 in what rights groups said was an arbitrary detention linked to his work on the Sinai Peninsula, an area designated by Egypt's army as a war zone for much of the past decade.
The detention comes two days after Egyptian authorities released prominent activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah following a presidential pardon.
Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, confirmed that Alexandrani had surfaced at the State Security Prosecution and had requested the presence of a lawyer.
Earlier, prominent human rights lawyer Khaled Ali said Alexandrani had been stopped at a checkpoint in northern Egypt's Matrouh on his way back from Siwa.
“He wrote himself that he had been detained, then his phones were switched off, and no one has been able to reach him since,” Ali wrote on Facebook.
Alexandrani posted on Facebook in the early hours of Tuesday that he had been stopped at a checkpoint near Marsa Matrouh.
Shortly afterwards, his phones went out of service, sparking alarm among family, friends and hundreds of followers. Attempts to contact him failed until rights groups later reported his transfer from Matrouh to prosecutors in Cairo.
Former political prisoner
The sudden loss of contact deepened concerns given Alexandrani’s history as a former political prisoner.
He was first arrested in November 2015 upon arrival at Hurghada Airport from Berlin, where he had been preparing his master’s thesis on comparative religions.
He was charged with “membership of a terrorist organisation” and “spreading false news”, accusations frequently levelled against government critics. His case was referred to a military court, which in May 2018 sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment, later reduced on appeal to seven.
Alexandrani was released in December 2022 after serving his full sentence, having been transferred from Badr prison to Alexandria and held briefly at Montazah 2 police station before his release.
Alexandrani’s imprisonment was denounced by Amnesty International and other rights groups as politically motivated.
Since his release, he had resumed research and writing, commenting only days ago on the plight of fishermen detained for allegedly entering military zones without permits.
Rights groups accuse the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of detaining at least 60,000 political prisoners, including journalists, politicians and rights advocates, since he came to power in a military coup in 2013.
