Conditions in Badr 1 prison where Badr Mohamed is being held are notoriously inhumane. Not only is he held with other prisoners in a small, cramped cell but he also has no bed, heating or access to clean water or adequate healthcare

Ahead of an appeal hearing at the Court of Cassation against Badr Mohamed’s unjust conviction and five-year prison sentence in connection to the Ramsis Square protests on 16 August 2013, when he was 17 years old, Amnesty International’s Egypt Campaigner, Souleimene Benghazi, said:

“Amnesty International has long called on the Egyptian authorities to immediately release Badr Mohamed and quash his unjust conviction and five-year prison sentence, which was handed down following a grossly unfair mass trial in which he was denied the right to an adequate defence. By 11 February, Badr Mohamed would have already spent a total of five years behind bars. It is high time for the Egyptian authorities to end this injustice and allow him to reunite with his family, including his wife Elena, an Austrian national, and his four-year-old daughter, Amina, whose birth he missed.

“Conditions in Badr 1 prison where Badr Mohamed is being held are notoriously inhumane. Not only is he held with other prisoners in a small, cramped cell but he also has no bed, heating or access to clean water or adequate healthcare.

“His ordeal is emblematic of the Egyptian authorities’ unrelenting reprisals against actual or perceived government critics, and their vicious crackdown on any form of dissent” – Amnesty International’s Egypt Campaigner, Souleimene Benghazi

“Badr Mohamed was a 17-year-old child when he was swept up in mass arrests of protesters and bystanders over a decade ago. His ordeal is emblematic of the Egyptian authorities’ unrelenting reprisals against actual or perceived government critics, and their vicious crackdown on any form of dissent. As well as releasing Badr Mohamed, Egyptian authorities must also release thousands of other individuals including peaceful protesters, opposition politicians, journalists and human rights defenders who have been arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their human rights or following grossly unfair trials.”

Background

Badr Mohamed was released on bail three months after his initial arrest on 16 August 2013 in connection to the Ramsis Square protests. Amnesty International documented the unlawful force used by security forces against protesters and bystanders during the protests, resulting in the death of 97 protesters. Badr Mohamed was later convicted and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in absentia in a grossly unfair mass trial in August 2017 on charges of participation in an illegal gathering and engaging in violence.

He was re-arrested in May 2020, and retried on the same charges as per Egyptian law for those tried in their absence. On 12 January 2023, Badr Mohamed was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison following a grossly unfair retrial in front of a terrorism circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court.

On 28 January 2025, the United Nation’s Human Rights Council carried out its Universal Periodic Review of Egypt’s human rights record. Several states such as Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have called on the Egyptian authorities to release all those arbitrarily detained for exercising their human rights or for politically motivated reasons.