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Human rights voices are raising alarm over the imminent deportation of Egyptian- American citizen Ahmed Fathi Kamel, who has been detained in Saudi Arabia since November at the request of Egyptian authorities.
Kamel, who faces a politically motivated sentence in Egypt, is currently held at the al-Shumaisi Detention Center in Jeddah, where deportees are typically held before being transferred to their home countries.
Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC), a prominent press freedom advocate, condemned Kamel’s arrest and called on Saudi Arabia to release him immediately. The group also urged the United States to pressure Riyadh to halt his extradition, warning that Kamel faces the risk of arbitrary detention and torture if sent back to Egypt.
For his involvement in nonviolent protests from 2011 to 2013, Kamel was given a 25- year prison sentence in absentia by an Egyptian court in 2017. His family claims that he is being charged with political offenses because he exercised his right to peaceful assembly. Since 2015, Kamel had lived and worked in Saudi Arabia without any problems, despite the conviction. He is still in Saudi Arabia, and his wife, Sherine Badawi, and their two young children, who were both born in the Kingdom, are afraid for their future if he is deported.
In a heartbreaking conversation to his wife on December 3, 2024, Kamel revealed that Saudi authorities had threatened to carry out his extradition before she and their kids could depart the nation. In a heartfelt plea, Badawi urged Saudi authorities to show mercy. As a nursing mother in a nation I'm still learning about, she remarked, am fighting to be strong for my kids so that we don't risk losing the pillar of our family.
Badawi also made a direct plea to U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “I am very afraid that my husband’s future will be dark if he is extradited, God forbid,” she said, urging the U.S. government to intervene.
WJWC has called on the U.S. Ambassador in Riyadh to visit Kamel at the detention center and for the U.S. government to assign legal representation for him. The organization is also pressing for diplomatic efforts to secure his release and prevent his deportation.
Kamel’s case is the latest in a string of controversial extraditions in the Middle East and North Africa. WJWC noted that earlier this year, an Egyptian poet was extradited from Lebanon to the UAE, while a political activist was sent from Iraq to Kuwait.
WJWC warn that deporting Kamel to Egypt would violate Saudi Arabia’s legal obligation under the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where they face persecution. WJWC has called on the United Nations and relevant human rights bodies to take urgent action and pressure Saudi authorities to halt the extradition.
As Kamel remains in detention, his family, legal advocates, and human rights organizations continue their fight to prevent what they think would be an unjust and dangerous deportation.
