We, the undersigned civil society organizations from around the world, call on Egyptian authorities to immediately release prominent activist, poet and political writer Ahmed Douma from pretrial detention and to stop their systematic campaign of judicial harassment against him.
On April 6, 2026, many in Egypt started the day with hopeful news following Egyptian authorities’ long…
During the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Council, HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement joined a civil society advocacy mission in Geneva alongside the Innovation for Change MENA Hub (I4C MENA Hub), 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, Smart Gov, and Wasl for Human Rights Tunisia, under…
Kuwaiti authorities have detained activist and writer Fareah Al-Saqqaf and thinker and activist Suad Al-Munayes over social media posts in which they expressed political views. Available information indicates that the State Security apparatus was responsible for their detention, amid a lack of clear official information regarding their legal status or the legal basis for the…
HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Participation condemns the arbitrary arrest of environmental activist Murtadha Al-Janoubi and a number of peaceful protesters, following their participation in demonstrations demanding fair and sufficient water allocations for the Meshrab River and surrounding marshlands in Maysan Governorate. This arrest is part of a troubling pattern of shrinking civic space…
The undersigned human rights organizations condemn the ongoing escalation of summonses to human rights, political, and journalistic figures for investigation by the Supreme State Security Prosecution, in a context in which these summonses are viewed as a deliberate tool to silence independent voices and intimidate those working in the public sphere. The summoning of Dr.…
Tunisian Member of Parliament Ahmed Saeedani was suspended following a Facebook post in which he criticized the executive authority’s handling of the country’s worsening economic situation, particularly its management of the recent floods, which exposed the fragility of infrastructure in several regions.
According to documentation collected by HuMENA, MP Ahmed Saeedani was arrested on 4 February…
HuMENA condemns the continued targeting of Jordanian activist Kamil Al-Zoubi for the peaceful expression of political views on matters of public concern, through a sustained pattern of arrests, prosecutions, trials, and restrictive measures since 2014. This case reflects a cumulative approach that treats political criticism and digital expression as recurring grounds for criminalization, through broadly…
On the fifteenth anniversary of the January 25, 2011 revolution, this moment is recalled as a point at which broad segments of Egyptian society—women and men alike—demanded a state governed by the rule of law rather than by a logic of exception; a state that guarantees tangible conditions for living with dignity; and a public…
Fifteen years have passed since the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution against injustice and tyranny, when the Tunisian people decided to break with a deeply entrenched authoritarian system that had been in place since 1989. The cost of that system’s persistence was severe for civil society and intermediary bodies, as human rights defenders and political…
HuMENA expresses deep concern regarding the serious health developments affecting lawyer and former administrative judge Ahmed Souab inside Mornaguia Prison on 5 January 2026. On that day, Souab suffered acute nosebleeding in the morning, followed by more severe bleeding in the afternoon that led to loss of consciousness. On 6 January 2026, Saeb Souab (Ahmed…
The undersigned non-governmental organizations call on the Houthi de facto authorities in Yemen, Ansar Allah, to immediately and unconditionally release the prominent human rights lawyer Abdulmajeed Sabra from arbitrary detention.
A family member reported that, on 25 September 2025, a group of Houthi armed forces and armed men in civilian clothing arrested Sabra after they stormed…
HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement strongly condemns the ruling issued on 1 October 2025 by the Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Nabeul, sentencing citizen Saber Chouchane to death.
Saber Chouchane is a day laborer from a remote area in the Cap Bon region, a father of three children, with a…
We, the undersigned organisations, express deep concern over the continued arbitrary detention of the Saudi human rights defender Mohammed al-Bejadi more than two years beyond his sentence. His continuing detention, along with countless others, demonstrates that despite a recent spate of prisoner releases, the Saudi authorities’ severe repression of rights activists and critics remains. We call for his immediate…
The undersigned organizations are extremely concerned over the continued enforced disappearance of Turkish-Egyptian poet and political dissident Abdulrahman Yusuf Al-Qaradawi for more than 200 days. Abdulrahman Yusuf was arrested in Lebanon on 28 December 2024 and forcibly extradited to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on 8 January 2025, in flagrant violation of due process guarantees…
We, the undersigned organizations, are deeply alarmed by the news that Egyptian academic and U.S. lawful permanent resident Dr. Salah Soltan is enduring a potentially life-threatening medical crisis and is at increased risk of sudden death while detained in Egypt’s Badr 1 prison without sufficient medical care. We urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and…
HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement strongly condemns the July 1, 2025, decision by the Algerian Appeal Court to uphold the politically motivated five-year prison sentence and a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars (approximately $3,700 USD) against the renowned French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. This verdict represents a serious breach of Algeria’s national and international…
Brussels, 26 June 2025
Amid escalating, systematic crackdowns on civil society across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the continued arbitrary detention of human rights defenders under harsh conditions, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), the Egyptian Human Rights Forum (EHRF), HuMENA for Human Rights and…
We, the undersigned organizations, call on the Egyptian government to immediately end its campaign of transnational repression targeting exiled Egyptian journalists. We specifically urge the government to respond to the UN report detailing the harassment and surveillance of Egyptian investigative journalist Basma Mostafa, currently residing in Germany. We further urge German authorities to ensure her…
