The right to travel, or more broadly, the right to freedom of movement, is considered a basic human right by the United Nations. The thinking goes that no government has the right to prevent people from being able to move, whether it is to migrate looking for better circumstances, or to travel for business purposes.
However, denying people the right to travel is a common human rights violation, and one which is often undertaken by governments that fear critics who might work with outside forces to advance change within their countries.
That is most likely why Egypt has been banning activists from traveling more or less since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took over in 2013. Between June 2014 and September 2016, 2017 people have been banned from travel that would take them out of Egypt, 115 of whom are outspoken critics of the government.
People who have travel bans against them most often find this out when they arrive at the airport, show their passport to security, and are subsequently told they aren’t allowed to fly. In the case of women’s rights activist Azza Soliman, she found out at the airport that she was banned from travel, and then that her personal assets and those of the NGO she runs had been frozen as well. She was unaware of any legal case against her.
“We are in a state that tramples on the law and constitution. They are acting like thieves in the night,” Soliman told Reuters. “I wasn’t shown a single official paper saying I’ve been banned from travel or that my assets have been frozen.”
Mohammed Zaree, an employee of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, had a similar experience. His organization is being investigated for allegedly taking foreign funds to sow chaos. But Zaree himself has not been charged with anything and had not received any notice for why he was restricted from traveling.
“The whole thing is very Kafkaesque,” he said. “I don’t know why I am banned or by whom, I don’t know where to get any official notice. I feel like the entire country is a giant prison I cannot leave and I am not sure how long my sentence is.”
The travel bans, coupled with the complete lack of information that activists like Soliman and Zaree receive, does not bode well for Egyptian human rights, which have come under fire in recent years. In many cases, these activists on are their way to conferences or meetings with activists in other countries, intent on discussing ways to improve human rights in Egypt. It’s hard to read the travel bans as anything other than an attempt to silence government critics as Sisi rolls back freedoms won following the 2011 collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule of the country.