The husband of a British mother-of-four who has been detained in a maximum-security facility in Egypt for six weeks has urged the UK government to help secure her release.
Eman el-Shazly, 45, travelled to Cairo to visit her mother when she was taken by Egyptian security forces on 17 August, according to her husband Zeesharn Moustapha.
The property was “smashed up” and the family say they were told to tell her activist sister Mona to stop publishing criticism, before officers returned to take el-Shazly and another sister, Shaema, the following day.
Moustapha said that the last thing he heard was his wife saying: “They’re going to take me” before the line went dead.
Since that day, the family has had no contact with Eman and say that she has been refused a lawyer. They do not know the condition she is in and are concerned for her welfare.
The family believe that she is being detained over social media videos posted by her sister Mona that have been critical of the Egyptian government.
Now he says his wife is facing a “kangaroo court” and fears for her safety. Last week the family launched a petition to “bring Eman home” and asked prime minster Andy Burnham and foreign secretary Ed Milband to use their influence to secure her release.
The couple share four children including three sons aged 18, 16 and nine and a 14-year-old daughter.
Moustapha says that the children have been forced to start the new school year without their mother and that they have been left “traumatised” by the ordeal.
“They’ve been upset, distraught, crying,” he told The Independent. “It was my son’s 10th birthday and he’s saying, ‘Mummy’s going to miss my birthday.’ It’s an emotional time for a young boy.”
The family have seen Eman’s brothers arrested on “identical” charges, with Moustapha saying that the men were previously held in pre-trial detention for around three years, before the charges were dropped and they were re-arrested in May this year.
They were accused of “promoting the ideas of a terrorist organisation on social media, as well as broadcasting false news harmful to state security”.
Due to the previous cases, Moustapha says that his children are worried that the situation will be repeated for their mother.
“She’s quite a strong-willed person but something like that would break anyone,” Moustapha says. “I’d be on the floor crying, you’re in a different country and then thrown into jail on fake charges.”
Moustapha has implored the prime minister to get involved in the case.
“We need the prime minister to get directly involved,” he said. “Make that call to Egypt and get this problem resolved because at the end of the day what they’re doing is against all human rights.
“There’s no legal basis for any of them to be arrested and it’s just an act of collective punishment. And now, there’s a British citizen, a mouther-of-four, in a maximum security prison who is completely innocent.”
He says that one of the brothers has been ill and has been refused medical attention. He fears the worst could happen to his wife.
“If my wife gets sick there, she could lose her life there,” he says. “Is the life of a British citizen not important to him [Burnham]?”
Mona el-Shazly told The Independent that she refuses to stop speaking out despite the treatment of her siblings and the fact that four families have been affected.
“Because yielding to intimidation means allowing fear to dictate who is permitted to speak. I understand completely why anyone under this level of pressure would want the nightmare to end, and I am terrified for my family's safety every single day,” she said.
“But stopping would establish a dangerous precedent: that an authoritarian regime can silence criticism anywhere in the world simply by taking family members hostage.
“I have zero tolerance for coercion. I have a duty to speak truthfully about corruption and abuse. My family must be released unconditionally because they are innocent individuals, not bargaining chips to control my voice.”
Ayoub Khan, MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, told The Independent that the local community had been left “distraught by the continued detention”, which means Eman has “now been separated from her loved ones for two months.”
“No one deserves to lose their freedom as punishment for someone else speaking out lawfully against injustice,” he said.
“I will keep working with Eman’s legal representatives – and pressing the British and Egyptian Governments – to secure Eman’s immediate release and return to her family.”
Arfan Rashid, a lawyer representing Moustapha, told The Independent: “The FCDO informed us on 15 September that the Egyptian authorities accuse Eman of joining and financing a terrorist organisation, using social media accounts to spread false news, and calling citizens to demonstrate and gather. Eman denies wrongdoing.
“Her Egyptian lawyer tells us that he has been provided with no evidence supporting those allegations. We therefore cannot assess what, if anything, the authorities say Eman herself did to justify her continued detention.
“The family has serious reasons to question whether the case is connected to her sister Mona’s criticism of the Egyptian government.”
A British government report released in March 2026 referenced the “targeting, arrest and harassment of family members of government critics, journalists, and human rights activists living abroad”.
The FCDO told The Independent: “We are supporting the family of a British national detained in Egypt and are in contact with the authorities.”
