Egyptian authorities have detained prominent independent journalist and researcher Ismail Iskandarani over Facebook posts critical of government policies, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday.

HRW reported that Iskandarani, known for his reporting on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and abuses by state security forces, was arrested on October 24, in Cairo after publishing a series of posts on Facebook commenting on Egypt’s domestic situation. Authorities have allowed his lawyers to meet him; however, they did not permit him to speak with them confidentially.

HRW said the detention is part of a broader pattern of Egyptian authorities’ repression of independent journalism and free expression. The organization noted that Iskandarani had previously spent over seven years in prison following his 2015 arrest, during which a military court sentenced him to 10 years in prison on charges of “spreading false news” and “joining a banned group”.

Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at HRW, said:

This is a bellwether moment for the Egyptian government and the only way out of its protracted crisis is to stop unlawfully detaining critics and journalists and release all those arbitrarily detained.

Iskandarani, an independent journalist and researcher, has previously faced state harassment for his reporting on counterterrorism operations and civilian abuses in North Sinai. In 2018, an Egyptian military court sentenced him to seven years in prison, a conviction widely criticized by rights groups as politically motivated.

His new detention underscores the ongoing repression of independent media under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Dozens of journalists remain imprisoned in Egypt on similar charges, and authorities continue to block hundreds of news websites. 

Egypt has been repeatedly condemned over the arbitrary detention of journalists, activists, and protesters, with UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor urging the Egyptian government to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which guarantee the rights of arrested persons and the right to a fair hearing, amid the human rights violation suffered by lawyer and activist Ibrahim Metwally.