Authorities at Cairo International Airport barred poet and political activist Ahmed Douma from traveling to Beirut early Sunday, a trip he described as an effort to escape the limbo of ongoing security harassment since his 2023 release. Douma said he plans to appeal the travel ban within two days.
In the incident's details, Douma completed all required travel procedures, but a passport control officer asked him to accompany him to the passports administration office, where he waited three hours before being directed to consult the public prosecutor's office regarding a travel ban decision. Neither Douma nor his defense team had been informed of any such ban during prior proceedings.
Since his release in August 2023 under a presidential pardon—after serving ten years of a 15-year hard labor sentence in the 2011 Cabinet clashes case—Douma has faced persistent challenges. He was unable to obtain official ID documents, including a passport, which he secured only three days before the airport incident.
Over the past ten months, the Supreme State Security Prosecution has summoned him four times, most recently in September, for investigations into charges of spreading false news related to his writings on detainees and torture. He also faces a contempt of religion charge tied to his poetry collection Curly, which the Public Prosecutor referred to Al-Azhar in 2024.
For each summons, the prosecution ordered his release on bail, totaling around LE130,000, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
Douma described the intended trip as an attempt to “break the state of limbo my life has been in due to ongoing security harassment” since his release.
