![A school boy walks near an election campaign bus for Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi adorned with his image, his slogan "long live Egypt", and C-shaped balloons, as Sisi's supporters prepare for a rally in Giza, the twin-city of the Egyptian capital, on October 2, 2023. [Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images]](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-1701635960-scaled-1.jpg)
He believed that by fleeing Egypt, the ordeal of pursuit, repression, and enforced disappearance would come to an end, but the jailer’s hand still reached his wife and children. “Ahmed Al-Gamal” (a pseudonym) said he was forced to leave the country after being sentenced to 15 years’ rigorous imprisonment in the case known in the media as the ‘Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in dispersal’ on 14 August 2013. The charges brought against Al-Gamal included ‘joining a terrorist group, armed assembly, premeditated murder and sabotage of public facilities’, prompting him to flee the country, leaving his wife and children without a breadwinner. From time to time, on a near-regular basis, Egyptian security forces raid the family’s home after midnight in a village in […]
