UK urged to help free British-Egyptian ‘arrested in Cairo over sister’s activism’

Lawyers claim Eman el-Shazly, from Birmingham, was detained in effort to silence her sister, a critic of Sisi regime

The UK Foreign Office has been asked to intervene to secure the release of a British-Egyptian woman who it is claimed has been arrested in Cairo because of her sister’s political activism.

Eman el-Shazly, a 45-year-old based in Birmingham, was arrested on 16 August while visiting Egypt. Her lawyers say she has been detained in an attempt to silence her sister Mona, a relentless and harsh critic of the Egyptian government on her UK-based YouTube channel.

Her two brothers have already spent three years in jail and, in May, were rearrested. They were previously held in pre-trial detention, facing charges of “promoting the ideas of a terrorist organisation on social media, as well as broadcasting false news harmful to state security”.

The UK Foreign Office has confirmed to the husband of Eman that she is being held in the Ramadan rehabilitation centre and her case has been given the same file number as that of her two brothers, Hassan and Eid.

The government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has faced allegations that it frequently arrests relatives of political critics to put indirect pressure on the dissidents to end their overseas criticism of his rule or of state corruption. Much of Mona’s activism focuses on alleged cases of corruption inside the security services or public utilities, a highly sensitive subject in Egypt.

Arfan Rashid, the lawyer acting for Eman’s husband with whom she has four children, says that unlike Mona his wife has never been involved in politics, and had gone to Cairo two months ago to look after her ill mother after the arrest of her two brothers.

“There is ample evidence that Eman has been arrested to silence Mona,” Rashid said. He added that Eman had told the security officials she was no longer in contact with her sister, and that many family members had repeatedly asked her to stop her political activism in the UK, but to no effect.

Mona confirmed to the Guardian that she had been asked to halt her activism by other family members, including to take down her YouTube videos.

But she added: “I have done nothing wrong nor broken any law … I am a very strong woman, but it is very traumatic for me since 11 or 12 children are without their parents. It is a horrible situation, but the Egyptian government will not stop if I appear weak. The government is close to collapsing.”

Rashid said the UK government had recognised the practice of “punishment by proxy” in Egypt in its country profile policy and information note published in March 2026. Human Rights Watch and the House of Commons library warned in 2021 of an escalating pattern in which Egyptian family members of critics living abroad were being targeted.

Mona runs a YouTube channel in the UK that has 130,000 subscribers.