12 February 2025, Washington DC | Three years – is the length of time Egyptian authorities detained Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo without trial – several months of those years they kept him in solitary confinement, solely for exercising his freedom of religion and expression. Today, Abdulbaqi is finally free and reunited with his family in Canada, thanks to persistent international and domestic pressure.
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo is a Yemeni Christian from a Muslim background. After threats from family and community members, he, his wife and children were preparing to leave the country when his wife was tragically murdered. Abdulbaqi, now a widower, and his four children fled Yemen to Egypt in 2014.
Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo was registered with the UNHCR and later remarried. On the 15th December 2021, plain clothed police raided his home at 2:00AM. The authorities confiscated his mobile and laptop, and those of his family members. Authorities kept Abdulbaqi under pre-trial detention for more than the two-year limit prescribed by law. This practice has been heavily criticised by human rights experts, and is evidence of the arbitrary nature of Abdulbaqi’s detention.
That the arrest and detention of Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo happened while he was waiting to be resettled, re-emphasises the importance of expediting cases where there is a clear chance of transnational repression or persecution under the existing laws in the country of refuge. There are numerous examples which Jubilee Campaign has reported on, for example, Slimane Bouhafs who was enforcibly disappeared from Tunisia to Algeria while awaiting resettlement to France. Bouhafs had been registered with the UNHCR and had raised concerns about the stalled resettlement process, citing Algerian authority infiltration within the UNHCR body in Tunis. Concerns about refoulement are not limited to the Middle East and North Africa region. Most recently, Ann Buwalda, Executive Director, moderated a panel during the IRF Summit Young Champions Track on “Holistic Approaches to Stem Religious Persecution,” where two cases were highlighted in which religious refugees face imminent refoulement from Thailand: UNHCR registered refugee Y Quynh Bdap and over 40 Uyghur Muslim asylum seekers.
While Jubilee Campaign welcomes the news of the release of Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo, as well as that of Nour Girgis – an Egyptian national who was detained a month before Abdulbaqi – we remain concerned that the charges against Abdulbaqi and Nour have not been dropped. Expressing your religion or belief, whether online or offline, is not a crime. We urge the Egyptian authorities to review and repeal their anti-blasphemy laws, as they are low-hanging fruit for hateful actors to target individuals for exercising their freedom thought, conscience, religion or belief. We commend the Embassy of Egypt in DC for acting on concerns raised regarding the handling of Abdulbaqi’s case, and urge them to call on Cairo to drop all charges against Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo and Nour Girgis.
Jubilee Campaign notes that Egypt during its Universal Periodic Review emphasised that it is working on minimising the maximum length of pretrial detention. While this amendment is welcome, their actual implementation is uncertain, as authorities continue to grossly violate existing pretrial detention limits, in violation of Egypt’s own Criminal Procedural Law—as was the case with Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo. We urge Egypt to ensure that its authorities respect its own domestic laws.
Jubilee Campaign also calls on the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to release its decision regarding the arbitrary detention of Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo and Nour Girigis.
Thank you very much everyone for your efforts and we are grateful to our Lord and to you also for your help us. May God bless you and bless your families. Thank you very much again. – Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo’s son, Hossam.
In response to the release of his father, Hossam sent a heartfelt thank you to everyone who advocated and prayed for his father’s release:
Thank you very much everyone for your efforts and we are grateful to our Lord and to you also for your help us. May God bless you and bless your families. Thank you very much again.
The children and wife of Abdulbaqi have advocated fiercely for his release – amplifying his voice from the prison and flagging relevant authorities, even at risk for their own safety. Due to protection concerns, Canada, through the UNHCR, was able to resettle Abdulbaqi’s wife and children in September 2024. Even in Canada, the family continued to advocate for their husband and father. The children of Abdulbaqi sent a letter to the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to expedite the resettlement of Abdulbaqi.
Several lawmakers and UN experts have highlighted the arbitrary nature of the detention of Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo by Egyptian authorities, including current U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio [then, Senator] and Congressman Chris Smith.