Activists in Egypt accuse the European Union of not using their leverage with the Cairo government to better protect them and to press for human rights.
A range of dissidents told me during a research trip to Egypt this week that the EU should be pushing much harder for prisoner releases, the dropping of charges against human rights activists, and the lifting of travel bans from those currently prevented from leaving the country.
While the notorious 173 “Foreign Funding” Case targeting various NGOs and activists was finally ended after 13 years, the country’s human rights crisis continues. Several of those I met in Cairo noted that President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi’s government was shaken by December’s sudden collapse of Bashar al Assad’s dictatorship in Syria and that a new wave of paranoia is sweeping the Egyptian government.
Sisi’s government keeps a close eye and strong hand on angry protests in Cairo regarding the slaughter in Gaza. The demonstrations the government doesn’t directly sponsor, it tightly controls. “A protest on the steps of journalists’ syndicate in March about the killing of Palestinian journalists was allowed to happen for exactly 60 minutes,” prominent Human Rights Defender Sherif Azer told me. “As soon as the hour was up, police made sure the crowd dispersed.”
Another leading activist also suggested that should Dr Laila Soueif, mother of British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, die on hunger strike in London it could spark protests on the streets of Cairo. Her son is a prominent activist held in prison in Egypt despite having served his full sentence last September.
Rising public resentment at soaring food prices is another worry for Sisi, who is increasingly reliant on bailouts from Gulf countries and Europe. Much of the Egyptian government is still banking on the country being seen as “too big to fail” by those in Europe and elsewhere alarmed at the possibility of a bankrupt Egypt dissolving into chaos.
One businesswoman told me that while the fall of Assad in Syria shook the government “it scared a lot of the public too, who are prepared to support Sisi against a civil war with Islamists.”
In recent months the EU and the IMF have promised Cairo $2.2bn in loans despite a fairly shaky economic outlook. According to French banking experts BNP Paribas, Egypt’s economy remains vulnerable despite positive momentum, with inflation now expected to dip but still hover at around 20 percent for 2025. In March 2025, the IMF noted mixed progress on the structural reforms it has insisted Cairo undertake.
Although parliamentary elections due later this year offer Sisi a pathway to the presidency for life, they could also offer an outlet for public anger over the economy, and the security forces are again targeting prominent Human Rights Defenders, fearful of their influence on the streets.
In January, leading activist Hossam Baghat was charged with terrorism-related offenses. Baghat heads the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, one of the few independent human rights NGOs that still exists.
Activists complain that the current volatility means the red lines on what they can and can’t do aren’t clear, and many contrast this state of uncertainty with the decades of dictatorship under President Hosni Mubarak, when the repression was at least predictable. “Now it’s impossible to know what you can say and not say,” another veteran activist told me.
Human Rights First has worked with local Human Rights Defenders in Egypt for decades, and while many of them have long written off the United States government as a useful ally, even before the Trump presidency, they expect more from the EU. Cairo depends on EU bailouts to help the floundering economy, and in an indication of a shifting political realignment, in February Egypt sided with the EU and against its long-term military ally Washington in voting at the United Nations to support Ukraine.
Many activists are frustrated at the EU, saying it could use its economic leverage to press the Egyptian government much harder on releasing jailed dissidents rather than buying into fake reforms of a National Dialogue or National Human Rights Strategy.
Locals struggling for human rights fear EU officials are quietly abandoning them. They cite a weakening of EU rhetoric on human rights, and fewer opportunities for activists to meet senior EU officials when they visit Egypt.
They say neither the visits to Cairo in March by the EU’s High Representative Kaja Kallas, or by Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica, included meetings with local human rights groups.
The EU’s symbolic, supportive public messaging of previous years is missed, as its rhetoric signaled some level of interest. “Even pretending they care would be better than nothing,” said one veteran activist.
