[1] The organisation has been subject to continuous harassment by the Egyptian authorities after reporting on human rights abuses by the el-Sisi government.

[15] In June 2014, The Guardian published a long article on the Azouli military jail in the Suez Canal area: "Prisoners at Azouli are routinely electrocuted, beaten and hanged naked by their tied wrists for hours until they either give up specific information, memorise confessions or until – in the case of a small group of released former inmates – are deemed of no further use to their interrogators.

[17][18] Lawyers connected to ECRF are also acting as the Egyptian legal counsel for the family of murdered Italian Giulio Regeni, whose body bearing signs of torture was found on a desert road outside Cairo on 3 February 2016.

[16] On 2 June 2015, Mohamed Lotfy, ECRF executive director, an Egyptian-Swiss National, was banned at Cairo International Airport from travelling to Germany and had his passport confiscated.

[19] He was on his way to Berlin invited by the Greens Party to participate in a discussion panel on the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt at the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag).

[20][21] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have continuously called on the Egyptian authorities to lift the abusive and arbitrary travel bans.

[22][23] His speech was still read at the Bundestag: "I wish i could be with you to speak on behalf of thousands who languish in inhumane conditions in jail for their political beliefs, opinions and affiliation, on whom the world knows little.