Amnesty urges Egypt to lift travel ban on two human rights lawyers

Amnesty has called on Egypt to lift the travel bans imposed against prominent human rights lawyers Nasser Amin and Hoda Abdelwahab in connection with criminal investigations into what Amnesty calls the NGOs’ legitimate human rights work. In March, after 13 years of investigations, Egyptian authorities announced the closure of Case 173/2011, widely known as the “foreign funding” case, which had involved the freezing of assets against at least seven organizations and 11 NGO workers, according to Amnesty, as well as travel bans against at least 31 human rights defenders and NGO staff. Travel bans against 29 of them have now been lifted, but the travel bans against Nasser Amin and Hoda Abdelwahab, co-founders of independent NGO, the Arab Centre for Independence of Judiciary and Legal Profession (ACIJLP), imposed in 2016, have remained in place.