Esraa
Abdel Fattah

Background and work

Esraa Abdel Fattah is a journalist and one of the founding figures of the April 6 Youth Movement, the online-organising current that helped seed the 2011 Egyptian revolution. She earned the nickname "Facebook Girl" after her 2008 arrest for organising a general strike in support of textile workers in Mahalla al-Kubra, becoming one of the first Egyptians imprisoned over digital activism. In the years since, she has worked as a journalist with independent outlets and as a campaigner for political detainees.

Arrest and detention

On 12 October 2019, plain-clothes officers stopped her in central Cairo and took her into custody. She was later added to State Security Case 488/2019, on terrorism and false-news charges connected to her journalism. In the first hours, at a National Security site, she was beaten, choked with her own top and hung by it, handcuffed and kept standing for hours to force her to unlock her phone, and threatened with sexual violence. She was then held at the Qanater women's prison. In August 2020, while still detained, she was questioned in a new case, 855/2020, on the charge of joining a terrorist group.

Release

After 21 months in pre-trial detention, she was released on bail on 17 July 2021. The release was not the result of a verdict, the case against her was never closed, but a precautionary measure subject to onerous reporting conditions. She had been on a travel-ban list since 24 December 2014 in the foreign-funding investigation, Case 173/2011. On 5 December 2021 the investigating judge in that case removed her from the list and the charges against her in it were dropped.

Current status as of 2026

Cases 488/2019 and 855/2020 were not reported closed after her release. No public information on her cases after December 2021 has been found.