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The Refugees Platform in Egypt has published a report on asylum conditions and information in Egypt in the Asylum Information Database (AIDA), a database managed by the European Council for Refugees and Expatriates (ECRE), making Egypt the second non-European country in the world to enter the database after Turkey.
Over the past few months, a team of legal researchers and specialists in asylum issues and local and international laws associated with the Refugees Platform in Egypt worked on the completion of the Egyptian AIDA report, which will become one of the most important legal and policy references on asylum information, policies, and practices in Egypt in regard to different Egyptian legislations and new laws.
The report is divided into several sections, including a glossary of terms, updated refugees statistics as of the end of March 2025, basic laws related to international protection, executive and administrative decrees, and legislation. Throughout the content of the report, the platform’s researchers began with an introduction to the context of asylum conditions in Egypt, including the history of laws, decisions, and legislation on asylum since the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol, ending with Law No. 164 of 2024, and analyzing the situation related to refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers during those periods.
The report goes on to describe Egypt’s status as a country of destination for refugees to settle in, a transit country to move to as a third country, or a country of origin from which Egyptians exit to other countries to escape local conditions. The report then analyzes in detail the strategic partnership between Egypt and the European Union, the impact of European funding on migration and asylum policies, and the conditions of forcibly displaced Egyptian people and non-Egyptian people.
After these extensive analyses to understand the asylum context and situation in Egypt, the report goes on to discuss asylum procedures in Egypt, distinguishing between the current practice following Law 164 and the practice before the law, identifying the authorities responsible for any procedure in the asylum process, the entry points through which a refugees, migrant, or asylum seeker enters, the impacts when starting the registration process until the process is completed, and the rights a forcibly displaced person holds during this process, whether there are guarantees granted to them, or if any are necessarily granted to increasingly vulnerable groups, and the legal violations that occur during this process, as well as whether a violation relates to international or domestic obligations, given that international obligations retain the force of domestic law after ratification of any international obligation.
The report also explores several forms of unique accommodations provided for specific nationalities and citizens, namely Palestinians, Syrians, and Sudanese people, by elaborating on the facilitation of abuse against these nationalities while tracing the historical context of their status in Egypt. On the subject of refugee-related violations, the report devotes a chapter to the detention of asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants by explaining the legal framework, the conditions of detention facilities, including locations and the extent of their compliance with the legality of detention facilities, access to detention centers by UNHCR and NGOs, and the availability of legal procedural safeguards for refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers throughout detention decisions.
The report also highlights the issues behind residence permits, procedures, conditions, and obstacles related to residence permits, the rights of forcibly displaced people to civil registration, the possibility of naturalization for those who wish to do so, as well as the possibility of suspending or withdrawing protection status from a migrant, refugee, or asylum seeker.
Moreover, the report examines issues related to family reunification and its existence throughout Egyptian law, forcibly displaced people’s ability to migrate and execute freedom of movement, and the possibility of granting them travel documents and resettling them in a third country.
A chapter in the report on international protection concludes by explaining the status of refugees’ basic rights, namely housing, employment, access to education, social welfare, healthcare, and litigation. Furthermore, the report finishes with a detailed description of each of these rights, the obstacles that prevent access to them, and the impact of all these conditions on the integration of refugees into a host society.
The report ends with a section on temporary protection measures and their availability in the Egyptian asylum system. This report provides a comprehensive study. based on AIDA methodology which is known for its rigor. This report also covers the legal and practical aspects of the Egyptian asylum system, whether the current system or the new Egyptian asylum law (Law No. 164 of 2024), to provide broader and more comprehensive knowledge of legal conditions from a documentary and analytical point of view in light of recent judicial developments.
The Egyptian regime does not provide information transparently, and deliberately distributes misleading or untrue information in order to use a cycle of knowledge reproduction the regime creates to then request international aid and gain legitimacy as a result of European cooperation on the one hand. On the other hand, European aid generates support for decisions and laws that increase violations and repression in Egypt and on Egyptian borders. Consequently, these legislations increase the volume of violations, and do not prevent or reduce them, which happens with full European cooperation and partnership.
The entry of this Egyptian report in AIDA aims to document and open a European political and legal debate on the extent to which Egypt adheres to international standards in asylum procedures, and Egypt’s treatment of forcibly displaced people whether as a country of transit to a third country, a country where refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers intend to settle, or a country of origin whose citizens exit to another country. This step supports advocacy efforts and serves as a pressure tool towards reforming existing policies and developing a fairer, more transparent and rights-compliant asylum system.
