Haytham
Mohamadeen

Background and Work

Haytham Mohamadeen is a labour rights lawyer and human rights defender based in Egypt. He dedicated his practice to providing pro-bono legal representation to workers facing dismissal, wage theft, and unsafe working conditions. He was a member of El-Naddim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, an Egyptian non-governmental organisation focused on combating torture and providing medical and legal support to victims of human rights violations.

His work placed him at the intersection of labour organising and human rights documentation in a country where independent trade union activity and criticism of state economic policy are increasingly criminalised. Lawyers who defend workers and document abuses have faced systematic targeting through Egypt's expanded state security apparatus.

Earlier Arrests and Precautionary Measures

Mohamadeen was detained by the army at a checkpoint near Suez in September 2013 and released two days later, and he was held in pre-trial detention from April to October 2016 over the Tiran and Sanafir protests. On 15 May 2018, he was arrested at his home and placed in pre-trial detention in State Security Case No. 718/2018. On 10 October 2018 a court ordered his release, but he disappeared from custody and was only freed on 29 October 2018. Then, on 19 November 2018, the Criminal Court of Cairo and the Supreme State Security Emergency Court imposed precautionary measures requiring him and nine other defendants in State Security Case No. 718/2018 to report to their local police stations twice weekly. The measures were renewed every forty-five days.

Re-Arrest and Enforced Disappearance

On 13 May 2019, Mohamadeen was summoned to Saf police station in Giza governorate. Authorities claimed he had violated the terms of his probation. When he presented himself at the station, police arrested him. He was held incommunicado, without access to his lawyer or family, for three days.

He reappeared on 16 May 2019 before the State Security Prosecution, which charged him with membership of a terrorist organisation. His detention was renewed every fifteen days. From August 2019 onward, renewals extended to forty-five days at a time. The cycle of renewal continued without trial until September 2022. In March 2021, after a new release order, prosecutors rotated him into another case, No. 1956/2019, on the same accusation.

Brief Release Order and Immediate Appeal

On 27 November 2019, the Criminal Court of Cairo ordered Mohamadeen's release under precautionary measures. One day later, on 28 November 2019, the Appeals Court of Cairo accepted an appeal filed by the Public Prosecution. He remained in detention.

Prolonged Pre-Trial Detention

Mohamadeen's detention was renewed repeatedly throughout 2020. On 18 February 2020, the Criminal Court of Cairo extended his pre-trial detention for an additional forty-five days. On 6 May 2020, the same court renewed it again. No trial took place. The charges against him expanded to include "aiding a terrorist organisation to achieve its goals" and "misuse of social media."

Release

On 15 September 2022, the Presidential Pardons Committee announced that the Public Prosecution had decided to release forty-six prisoners held in preventive detention. Mohamadeen was among them. He had spent almost four years in pre-trial detention, across 2018 and 2019 to 2022, without being convicted of any crime. The terrorism-related charges were never adjudicated in open court.

Legal and Procedural Context

Egypt's Code of Criminal Procedure permits pre-trial detention for a maximum of two years. In practice, prosecutors routinely circumvent this limit by closing one case file and opening another with identical or expanded charges, a procedure known as "rotation" or "recycling." Defendants remain in detention across multiple case numbers without ever facing trial. The practice has been condemned by Egyptian and international human rights organisations as a form of arbitrary detention that renders legal maximums meaningless.

Mohamadeen's case exemplifies the use of terrorism charges and state security prosecution to neutralise labour organisers and legal defenders. His detention from May 2019 spanned more than three years, during which he was denied the right to a timely trial, subjected to enforced disappearance, and held under laws that grant prosecutors near-unlimited powers of renewal. His release in 2022 was administrative, not judicial; the charges were never withdrawn, and no court declared him innocent.