On June 21, 2014, she was arrested along with at least 30 other activists who were marching near Ittihadiya Palace, the Presidential offices in Cairo, in a peaceful demonstration against the Egyptian law that curtails the right to protest.

Her trial along with 22 fellow demonstrators, all charged with violating the protest law, has become a symbol of resistance to harsh restrictions on dissent imposed by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

As a researcher at the Cairo offices of the Institut de recherche pour le développement, a French think-tank, she investigated the effects of divorce law and policy on Egyptian women's lives.

Yara hung up, put the phone down next to her, and started writing on the computer while bursting into tears.”[5] After receiving her LL.M, Sallam moved to The Gambia to work as a legal assistant to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights.

"[1] Detainees later released from jail told local human rights organizations that "a number of the arrested protesters were beaten and threatened to be charged with belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood" or the revolutionary April 6 Youth Movement.

In addition to Yara Sallam, the defendants include Sanaa Seif, a student and revolutionary activist who is the sister of Alaa Abd El-Fattah; photojournalist Abdel-Rahman Mohamed; and photographer Rania El-Sheikh.

At the June hearing, at a courtroom in the Tora security compound south of Cairo, a judge refused to release the defendants on bond, and even turned down requests to remove male detainees' chains.

In July 2014, Egypt's government-affiliated National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) sent investigators to El-Qanater Prison to interview women detainees in the case about their treatment.

"[12] Shortly before the arrest of Sallam and her colleagues, Egyptian human rights organizations documented widespread patterns of torture and sexual abuse of women detainees at El-Qanater, where many supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood are also held.

[13] On October 26, a Heliopolis misdemeanor court sentenced Ettehadiya case defendants including Yara charged with violating the protest law to three years in prison and a 10 thousand Egyptian-pound fine.