CAIRO — An American woman held without trial in an Egyptian prison for more than 300 days, over a Facebook page that criticized Egypt’s president, has been freed and returned to the United States, her supporters and American officials said on Monday.
The release of the woman, Reem Desouky, which followed months of pressure from the Trump administration, came after the death in January of another imprisoned American, Moustafa Kassem, whose case became a sore point in otherwise warm relations between Washington and the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The dangers faced by political detainees in Egypt’s dirty, overcrowded prisons were highlighted this past weekend with the death of Shady Habash, a 24-year-old filmmaker detained for two years for directing a that mocked Mr. el-Sisi. What caused Mr. Habash’s death remains unclear.
Ms. Desouky, 47, an Egyptian-American arts teacher from Pennsylvania, renounced her Egyptian citizenship, likely as a condition of her release, just before she boarded a flight to the United States on Sunday.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Mohamed Soltan of the Freedom Initiative, a group that campaigns for the release of political prisoners in the Middle East. “We hope this kind of momentum continues to pressure the Egyptian government so that other imprisoned Americans are released.”
Ms. Desouky was arrested at Cairo’s international airport in July soon after her arrival from Washington with her 13-year-old son. Officials accused Ms. Desouky of running a Facebook page that criticized Mr. el-Sisi and sent her to a women’s prison outside Cairo.
A judge ordered her release from detention in February but prosecutors appealed the decision. Her son, Moustafa Hamed, made an emotional appeal by to President Trump, an enthusiastic ally of Mr. el-Sisi, to press for her release.
Egypt’s prisons, estimated by the United Nations to hold 114,000 people, have come under renewed scrutiny during the coronavirus pandemic as rights groups appeal for the mass release of prisoners to save them from a possible disease outbreak.
Mohamed Amashah, one of at least five American citizens still imprisoned in Egypt, began a hunger strike in March to draw attention to his plight, his father said. Mr. Amashah, a fourth-year medical student, has been awaiting trial for over a year on charges of misusing social media and assisting a terrorist group. He suffers from asthma and an autoimmune disorder.
“How about my son?” said his father, Abdelmageed Amashah, speaking from the family home in New Jersey. “We are in touch with the State Department and with the embassy in Cairo, but they say they can’t do anything. I know it’s going to take a phone call from Mr. Trump to Sisi to free him.”
For years, Mr. el-Sisi mostly ignored appeals for clemency toward foreigners languishing in Egypt’s jails. But in recent months, he has sought to actively curry favor with foreign allies and sent planeloads of medical aid to the United States and Italy in recent weeks.
American officials say that Cairo is counting on the Trump administration to help broker a solution to a thorny dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Renaissance dam, a giant hydroelectricity project under construction across the Nile.
The Trump administration has also been uncharacteristically sharp with Mr. el-Sisi’s government over detainees since the death of Mr. Kassem, 54, who had been imprisoned in Egypt for six years on what he insisted were baseless charges.
Vice President Mike Pence had lobbied Egypt for the release of Mr. Kassem, who was on a hunger strike at the time of his death. In a call to Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, on April 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointedly stressed that American prisoners in Egypt should be kept safe during the pandemic.
In an email on Monday welcoming Ms. Desouky’s release, Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman, said: “The State Department has no higher priority than the safety and welfare of U.S. citizens overseas.”
