Aida
Seif El-Dawla

Background and work

Aida Seif El-Dawla is a psychiatrist, professor and co-founder of the El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture. Established in 1993 in downtown Cairo, El Nadeem became one of the first specialised torture rehabilitation services in the Arab world, providing psychological, medical and legal support to survivors of police and prison violence and to women survivors of domestic and sexual violence. She has also been a senior member of the Nadeem-affiliated Working Group Against Torture in Egypt and has written extensively on the politics of psychiatry and the medicalisation of dissent.

Arrest and detention

She has never been formally arrested. Instead, the Egyptian authorities have pursued a sustained campaign of administrative and reputational pressure against her and her centre. The Ministry of Health ordered the closure of El Nadeem in February 2016 on a series of pretextual licensing grounds. The centre challenged the order in the administrative courts, and police closed the premises in February 2017 while the case was pending. In January 2021 the Administrative Court overturned the 2016 closure decision.

Conviction and imprisonment

No criminal verdict has ever been entered against her. She was, however, placed under a travel ban on 23 November 2016, when she was stopped at Cairo International Airport and told she was either a defendant in, or a witness to, a criminal case. The case in question is the long-running Foreign Funding Case 173/2011 against independent NGOs, in which dozens of Egyptian rights defenders have been investigated, banned from travel and had their assets frozen for receiving foreign funding to do human rights work. On 20 March 2024 the investigating judge closed the case against El Nadeem, a decision that also ended the travel bans on the staff of the groups named.

Current status as of 2026

She remains in Cairo. El Nadeem operates from new premises in a reduced capacity, having survived multiple eviction attempts. On 15 February 2026 she was questioned in Supreme State Security Prosecution Case 809/2026 over the Centre's torture archive, charged with spreading false news and released on bail of EGP 100,000. In November 2026 the Cairo Appeals Prosecution summoned her in a second case, Case 30/2026, and the questioning was postponed to 9 November for health reasons. She continues to publish, lecture and provide clinical supervision in restricted forms. She remains one of the most senior and respected voices in the Egyptian human rights movement.