The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the ongoing abuses faced by human rights lawyer and coordinator of the Association of Families of the Forcibly Disappeared Ibrahim Metwally. Metwally’s persecution began when he was arbitrarily detained more than seven years ago, where he has since been held in poor detention conditions. He was indicted in three different cases on the same charges without being presented with any evidence or witnesses. 

The first hearings of Metwalli’s trial in connection with two cases were scheduled at once. The first case (No. 900 of 2017), will be held before the First Circuit of the Cairo Criminal Court’s Terrorism Circuit on 1 June, while the second (No. 1470 of 2019), will be heard by the Second Circuit of the same court on 11 June. 

As a member of his defense team, EIPR reiterates that trying Metwally (61 years) on the same charges in connection with more than one case at the same time flagrantly contravenes the Code of Criminal Procedures, which stipulates that a person may not be tried for the same act twice. Moreover, lawyers were denied access to the case files, and no serious investigation into the case has been conducted for more than seven years. This can only be explained as retaliation against Metwally for exercising his legitimate right as a father and lawyer to know the fate of his son, Amr, a student who disappeared on 8 July 2013 during what was known in local media as the "Republican Guard events". Since then, the Egyptian authorities have refused to acknowledge his demand or investigate the disappearance, just as they continue to refuse to join the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Metwally was arrested on 10 September 2017 at Cairo Airport while on his way to Geneva upon an invitation to participate in the 113th session of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances. He was prevented from travelling and appeared two days later, on 12 September, before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, which interrogated him only once in connection with Case No. 900 of 2017, on charges of “leading a terrorist group” and financing it between 2013 and 2024. After being held in solitary confinement and denied visits for more than two years, the State Security Prosecution decided on 15 October 2019 to release Metwally without bail, but the Ministry of Interior did not implement the decision. Metwally remained in enforced disappearance for 20 days at the National Security headquarters in Kafr El-Sheikh, where he was reportedly subjected to torture until he appeared again before the State Security Prosecution on 5 November 2019. He was interrogated again in connection with Case No. 1470 of 2019 on charges of joining and financing a "terrorist group" and participating in a criminal conspiracy to commit a terrorist crime that did not take place, during the period between 1992 and 2020. Metwally was detained for nine months before the Criminal Court decided to release him on parole.

Metwally was not released after the issuance of the second release order, and instead was charged in August 2020 t in a third case, No. 786 of 2020, under which he has been illegally held in pretrial detention for nearly five years now. 

For the past seven years, Metwally has not been able to see any of his family members without separation barriers. Moreover, he experienced poor detention conditions. He was detained for five years in Tora Maximum Security Prison 2, where he developed an enlarged and severely inflamed prostate, and was denied exercise and access to medication, books and newspapers. In 2022, Metwally was transferred to Badr Prison 3, whose administration allowed his family to visit him for the first time in June 2023. However, he talked to his family via phone in a glass booth.

Today, 12 May 2025, Metwally rejected visits due to the prison administration’s insistence that the visit take place through a barrier, without clarifying the security need for such a procedure or the danger that could occur if Metwally shakes hands with his wife and granddaughter, whom he has never seen face to face since his arrest.