"Egyptian students abroad are the most dangerous group of emigrants." This statement by Egypt’s immigration minister, Nabila Makram, is a good indication of her government’s policy regarding academics abroad. It came after Egypt, under the military regime of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, had successfully tightened its grip on academic research at home. It is now working on expanding that grip to academics abroad, often using security forces, intelligence services and the infamous Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP), and even the country’s embassies.
This tightening grip has already found numerous victims, including Walid Salem, Ahmed Samir, Patrick Zaki, and others. Their arrests demonstrate the arbitrariness of the Egyptian security system. Any Egyptian researcher abroad faces the risk of being arrested upon return to their home country. This presents a dilemma: return and face the possibility of arrest, or stay abroad and live in exile.
As an Egyptian researcher myself and a colleague of some of those arrested, I have opted for the latter: to be exiled from my country to avoid the regime’s grasp. However, not everyone is as privileged as I am to have this option. After all, Egyptians and others from the global South have restricted freedom of movement and face numerous challenges to obtain visas and the right to stay in other countries, especially in the West.
