Restrictions: Travel Ban |
Aida Seif Al-Dawla is one of the founders of El-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence. She was issued with a travel ban on 23 November 2016 on the basis of her involvement in an unspecified court case. She was heading to Tunisia to attend a conference for organisations working on the rehabilitation of victims of violence in North Africa at the time.
She had not received any prior notice of the ban from the public prosecutor, but an officer at the airport, where she was first stopped, suggested her lawyer gave the wrong address.
On 8 October 2019, she was informed that she had been officially summoned by the prosecution on 7 October, yet not told the reason why. Subsequently, she discovered that a citizen had accused her of “damaging the country’s reputation.”
She was summoned to the prosecution on 16 March 2020 in case 1075/2020, yet the summons was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. It is not yet clear on what grounds she was summoned.
The El-Nadeem Center’s rehabilitation clinic was threatened with closure in February 2016 following a dispute with the Health Ministry over the legality of the team’s advocacy work against torture. The closure was executed a year later in 2017 and is currently being contested by the center in court.
Dr Seif Al-Dawla remains under travel ban and under investigation as part of case 173/2011 although the authorities claim the case is almost closed.