Egyptian repression targets journalist even in exile

Egyptian investigative journalist Basma Mostafa had no choice but to flee her homeland, where the independent press is systematically under pressure. She has been living in Germany since 2021. Florian Boillot

Even in exile, Egyptian journalist Basma Mostafa cannot escape her country’s grip: surveillance, intimidation, and threats have trailed her from Cairo to Germany. In Geneva, she tells a story that exposes the growing reach of transnational repression.

When we spoke with Mostafa in the discreet conference room of a Geneva NGO one hot summer’s evening, nothing in her smiling face betrays the constant fear that haunts her. Yet the Egyptian investigative journalist exiled in Germany has been the victim of constant threats, pressure and surveillance from her country of origin.

Today, Mostafa typifies the struggle against what is known as transnational repression, a worldwide phenomenon involving various intimidation tactics aimed at silencing critical voices among political exiles. Nothing, however, suggested at the beginning that she was going to have to take on this role.

>> To find out more about how transnational repression manifests itself in Switzerland, read our article on the subject:

A difficult vocation

Mostafa grew up in a country village five hours’ drive from Cairo, the Egyptian capital. She enjoyed a peaceful childhood that was far from the political preoccupations and human rights struggles that inform her work today.

The turning point came in 2011. Following the Arab Spring, the promise of the Egyptian revolution unravelled and Mostafa, then a student, found herself in trouble.

“In March 2011, my father was subjected to arbitrary arrest by military men,” she recalls. “He was held incommunicado for two weeks.”

To try to find him, she went to Cairo’s Tahrir square, which was the centre of protest then. There she met journalists and militants.

“Their work inspired me,” she says. “Thanks to them, I understood how human rights were being denied in Egypt. I saw that journalism could have a real impact. It drove me to follow that path.”

For several years, she investigated government atrocities: disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions. That put her at risk. “It is difficult to carry on this kind of investigative work in Egypt. I was arrested twice myself,” says Mostafa.

Under the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi – a general who seized power in 2013 – Egypt became an authoritarian state, marked by the concentration of power and the silencing of critical voices. Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders says Egypt became “one of the world’s great prisons for journalists”.

Years of exile

In 2020, Mostafa worked on “the investigation that went too far” – into the presumed murder of an Egyptian family man by a police officer in a village near Luxor. She was arrested a third time, was held incommunicado for 24 hours, and was charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and spreading false news.

“I now risked 25 years in prison. At that point I decided to escape,” she says.

She wandered for nine months between Kenya and Lebanon. With a husband and two daughters, she lived in uncertainty. Very soon, the family came to realise that quitting Egypt would not remove them from the grip of the regime.

“During that whole period, Egyptian agents harassed us,” she recalls.

In Nairobi, at the hotel where they stayed, men were watching them, monitoring them from outside their door. At the family’s every move, they made calls in Arabic with a view to intimidating them.

Finally, they were granted asylum in Germany. Mostafa thought she had at last found a refuge. “I really thought everything would stop,” she says. “That in Germany, we would be in safety,”

A nightmare begins

The respite was a short one. In July 2022, she learned that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi was expected in Berlin for a meeting with then German chancellor Olaf Scholz. Mostafa tried to register for the press conference, but her request was rejected. “It was on the pretext of a late registration, which was untrue. I was infuriated. I realised that here too the Egyptian regime could interfere with my work.”

On the day of the official visit, she took part in a demonstration. There too she was singled out. She was surrounded by a group of Arabic-speaking men who insulted her, one of them hitting her in the face. “From that day on, everything changed for me in Germany. My life became a nightmare, which still goes on.”

The acts of intimidation continued. She and her family received new threats. Her social media accounts were raided. Even on her first trip to Geneva, last year,  Mostafa was followed to her hotel by men who threatened to arrest her. Fear was there, and isolation too.

Mostafa now avoids meetings of the Egyptian diaspora.

“I isolate myself to protect my family members, but also to avoid violent confrontations in public,” she says. “I fear some unknown individual abusing me as a traitor in front of my daughters. As it is, my children ask me so many questions: why were you put in prison? Why did you have to get out of Egypt? When will we see our grandmother?”

Belated recognition

The case of Mostafa eventually came to the attention of five special United Nations rapporteurs. In a letter dated December 2024, these experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council denounced the “continued harassment and transnational repression” suffered by the journalist and call on the Egyptian authorities to put a stop to it.

In Berlin, she goes on with her work. She co-founded the Law and Democracy Support Foundation – an NGO which advocates democratic principles in Egypt and the Middle East and supports people whose rights have been denied.

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Last April, the human rights commissioner of the German government denounced for the first time the repression of which Mostafa is a victim. She is waiting for results of German judicial investigations, several of which are pending.

“I do not lose hope,” she affirms. “Three years ago, I felt I was talking to a silent audience, and that no one understood what I was going through. Today, more people recognise the problem of transnational repression. It gives me courage.”

Edited and fact-checked by Imogen Foulkes/sj. Adapted from French by Terence MacNamee/ds