Egyptian lawyer and human rights defender Hoda Abdelmoneim is currently in prison, under dire conditions, where she has suffered a stroke and a heart attack. Despite her worsening health conditions, Abdelmoneim, a former member of the National Council for Human Rights in Egypt, has been barred from receiving visits at Al-Ashir Men Ramadan Women’s Prison in Sharqia, Egypt. Though she completed her initial sentence for the charge of “joining and funding a terrorism group”, she remains in prison following an unjust sentence renewal — this is despite the Egyptian Code of Civil Procedure preventing a repeated trial and punishment for the same offence.
Gehad Khaled, one of her daughters and a human rights advocate herself, shares how her mother’s continuing imprisonment has affected her family and what other human rights activists like her mother need.
I am Gehad Khaled.
An Egyptian human rights defender born and raised in Cairo to a family that was in the opposition.
My father faced prison for years when I was six due to his activities in the lawyer's union after he won in its elections. He was arrested not long after this due to his fight against corruption and spent three years in prison.
I grew up dreaming about the revolution against the corrupted military regime, and when it happened in 2011 I was there [to see] part of my dream coming true. The things that matter the most to me are freedom, justice, and seeing my country one day respecting human beings. My cause now is getting all the political prisoners released, it might be a huge dream but this is what I live for.
All my work since 2019 has been advocating for the freedom of political prisoners in Egypt. I have also advocated for some in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but decided to keep focusing on Egypt. I am working independently but of course collaborating with different NGOs and many colleagues. Before that I was documenting the human rights violations in Egypt. I do advocacy missions in the EU, UN, and used to do some in the US as well but that last one is on pause for now.
Portrait of Gehad Khaled standing under a pergola in Parc de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium in April 2025.
I grew up watching my mother working as a volunteer all her life.
She was always working for her purpose. She was a lawyer, researcher, consultant, and also volunteered in many charities. At the same time she was a perfect wife and an amazing mother to her four daughters. I have always seen her as a superhero, one who has never forgotten a detail about her work or her family.
Her arrest was like a bullet to the heart of the family. I think nothing is holding us together, except for all the love and support we got from her. She built something lasting inside of us. We are just trying to stay strong for her, while each one of us is facing a lot of issues everyday that need her advice. She is not just our mother, she is our best friend, and the hardest thing is when my nieces and nephews ask about her and when their teta is coming back.
My youngest niece turned six years old in February 2025. She never met mama.
She knows her from her photos all over the house, and she always asks about her.
Sometimes when my family can’t visit her or when one of us suddenly gets anxious the first thing we think about is what is happening to her right now? It is too scary and it is something we can never move on from, while she is not home safe and sound. My mother is 66 years old and her health has deteriorated so much; what should be happening is that we take her home and take care of her, instead of her being in a cell alone. We can’t check on her at any time, and she as a mother and grandmother doesn’t know anything about what’s happening to us.
Gehad Khaled
Gehad Khaled holds a selection of family pictures that show her mother, Hoda Abdel Moneim, and her siblings in April 2025.
Gehad Khaled
Gehad Khaled holds a photograph of her as a toddler, captured by her mother, Hoda Abdel Moneim, in Brussels, Belgium in April 2025.
Ironically, my mother worked on a project about improving prison conditions.
She was a member of the national human rights council at the time.
After the military coup in 2013 she worked on documenting the violations, particularly enforced disappearances. Now the regime in Egypt does not give any chances for civic space in any form. A person like my mother (that documented the violations) is thought of as someone that must be punished, even though she retired a year and half before her arrest due to health issues.
We need the world to understand that there is no respect for the rule of law in Egypt.
My mother faced an unjust trial where she was sentenced to five years. She served the whole sentence, but then they tried her on two other cases with the same charges, which is illegal. It is systematic now with most of the people who have served their time, we call it “rotation”.
There is no space for any human rights activity in Egypt now because everyone is threatened by the regime. The public atmosphere is suffocating.
We need the international activist community to raise the Egyptian cause, talk about it, and question their representatives about it, especially with all the allies that the Egyptian regime has now.
There are numerous challenges facing Egyptian civil society.
For activists inside Egypt it is getting arrested or getting banned from travel. Sometimes it is being added to a terrorism list which, for example, is happening now with the lawyer and human rights defender Mohamed El-Baqer while at the same time he is participating in the national dialogue.
If you are an activist outside Egypt you might also face transnational repression by being listed on a terrorism list or having your family members banned from travel. There are also, of course, cases of embassies not issuing any official papers for activists and sometimes even arresting one or some of your family members.
Things need to change.
First of all, we need the release of all the human rights activists, defenders, lawyers, and journalists. We need respect for the rule of law, and to not resort to special courts during civilian trials. We need the travel ban for all the human rights defenders and activists lifted.
Ordinary people should keep talking about the political prisoners and put pressure on their regimes and the Egyptian regime to call for these changes. We need all the voices in this fight because it is our freedom and literally our lives at stake.
View of Gehad Khaled's hands as she holds her phone displaying an image of her mother, Hoda Abdel Moneim, as her screensaver.
This article, as narrated to Gugulethu Mhlungu, has been slightly edited for clarity. The 2024-2025 In My Own Series is part of Global Citizen’s grant-funded content.