Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, Azza Soliman, has spent nearly 30 years defending victims of torture, violence and discrimination and continues to fight to improve women’s social and economic rights under Egyptian law. During the last eight years, she has been fighting in the shadow of a court case that resulted in a travel ban and the freezing of her accounts. Now, the case against her finally seems to be closed.
“I was about 20 years old when I was first arrested,” says Azza Soliman.
Police showed up at her home and arrested her in front of her family after she took part in a student demonstration against the then president, Hosni Mubarak. She was detained for about 24 hours and interrogated about one of her friends from university who had fled the demonstration.
“I kept saying over and over again that I knew nothing about it, and it turned out to be a seminal experience for me. They made me sit in the office for a long time in order to make me nervous, they tried to intimidate me, to humiliate me, but I realised that resistance came naturally to me. I showed them that I didn’t agree to their terms,” she says and continues:
“It’s one of those situations that either make you stronger or make you cave in. I could have been so frightened that I would never have dared to speak out against the regime again. But I became strong.”
Today, Azza Soliman is an internationally recognised lawyer, feminist and human rights activist. For almost 30 years, she has fought for human rights and women’s rights as a lawyer and in her role in the organisation Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), which she co-founded in 1995 and which is one of KVINFO’s partner organisations in the country.
CEWLA and KVINFO
KVINFO has been working with the Center For Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA) for over 10 years.
CEWLA is a feminist, non-profit organisation working to promote gender justice and change legislation. The organisation offers Egyptian women legal support and assistance on their rights according to the Egyptian constitution, Egyptian legislation and international conventions. In addition, CEWLA works to support women in acquiring skills that enable them to better exercise their rights and overcome their problems.
The organisation aims to create a society of equal opportunities for both genders and to eliminate discrimination and incorporate legal, social, economic and cultural rights for women into Egyptian law.
The collaboration is funded by theDanish-Arab Partnership Programme (DAPP) under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In addition to her work in Egypt, she has served as a consultant for the UN, UNDP, UN Women and a number of international organisations and Arab governments over the years. Today, Azza Soliman is recognised as one of the most prominent human rights defenders in Egypt.
Improving rights one case at a time
In her younger years, Azza Soliman chose to study law because of her fundamental sense of injustice. To this day, this remains the driving force behind everything she does.
“I witnessed poverty, discrimination, violence. The Mubarak regime was brutal. This prompted people in the streets to shout “kill Mubarak”. But no, we’re going to court, I thought. My path to creating change was through the law and the courts.”
“Initially, I found that when I worked with women and other oppressed groups and articulated their issues and rights, they trusted me. At the time, I didn’t know all the concepts, but I knew that I was against violence and discrimination and I could see that the law could be used as a means to achieve rights and more equality. Today, my practice is mostly based on human rights and I use international law to fight for those rights in Egypt.”
In Azza Soliman’s own words, as a lawyer she is trying to improve women’s rights and human rights in Egypt one case at a time. In collaboration with CEWLA, she has worked on cases related to violence against women, divorce rights, inheritance rights and other legal, economic and cultural rights.
It has also been important for her to break taboos related to women’s rights, gender equality, bodily autonomy and experiences of violence. As for what she is most proud of, she points to CEWLA’s work on the issue of incest.
“When we started talking about incest way back in the mid-1990s, everyone from the authorities said ‘no, no, no, you can’t, it will be considered a scandal in the religious communities’, but we persisted in bringing it to the table. This has meant that topics such as incest and honour killings, which we have also worked extensively on, are part of the public debate today,” says Azza Soliman.
“These issues have become more mainstream, and it is time to do something about them.”
Friendliness and equal treatment
KVINFO met with Azza Soliman when she was in Denmark with CEWLA in the autumn of 2024.
It is hard not to be enthralled by her engaging and warm personality.
She speaks quickly and emphasises almost every word as soon as the conversation turns to the many injustices that she believes we still need to address and fight against.
Her gaze is determined, yet always warm.
“I get my kindness from my father,” she says. “I come from a simple family, but kindness and respect – for both men and women – have always been second nature to him. He instilled that value in us, too.”
Azza Soliman grew up in a family with four sisters and two brothers.
“My father never hid the fact that he almost loved and appreciated girls more than boys. It wasn’t like the typical Egyptian family, but he and my mum always encouraged us girls to get an education and especially underscored the importance of working,” she says.
“According to Egyptian law, men inherit more than women, but my father had made sure we all inherited the same when he died. My brothers were a little offended at first, but it was another way for him to show us that we are equals.”
Eight years of uncertainty
As we start talking about the court case that has decidedly limited her life and work for the past eight years, Azza Soliman’s eyes darken.
She has never shied away from raising controversial topics or issues in her career or spearheading campaigns against discrimination in Egypt. However, this approach has taken a toll on both her personal life and financial situation.
Especially since one day in 2016 when she was stopped at the airport on her way to Jordan and realised that she had been banned from leaving the country. Soon after, both her own and her company’s bank accounts were frozen, and when Azza reported the bank to the police because they had failed to produce a warrant, she was arrested again at her home in December 2016.
At the police station, she was dragged through a long and messy interrogation lasting several hours, after which, with the help of her colleagues, she was released on bail.
During the interrogation, she learned that she was suspected of receiving money from abroad and harming Egypt, among other things. As she describes it, she became part of the Egyptian authorities’ witch hunt against NGOs in the country.
“The interrogation became a big deal in Egypt and I was portrayed as a millionaire who was just exploiting my country and collecting money from foreign organisations and countries that wanted to harm Egypt,” she says.
I have lost all those years
Many local lawyers, statements of support from around the world and a formal protest note from the UN reflected the wide support of Azza Soliman after her arrest, yet it did not change the travel ban or the frozen accounts.
She lost her many international assignments and has spent the last several years relying on friends and family to help her borrow money and work as a lawyer through her friend’s firm.
“It was actually humiliating and I feel like I lost something. A pride I haven’t been able to find again. Some of my life. I laugh, but not like I used to. I work, but not quite like before.”
AZZA SOLIMAN
Azza Soliman, born in 1966, graduated from Cairo University with a law degree and later received a master’s degree from Columbia University.
In 1995, she co-founded Center For Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA)where she currently serves as a board member and executive director.
Furthermore, she worked as a consultant for the UN, UNDP, UN Women and a number of international organisations and Arab governments until her exit ban in 2016. Among other things, she has worked on drafting reports that were submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
She has spearheaded several campaigns against discrimination in Egypt and has won several international awards for her work to promote human rights in the country.
The difficulty of working to strengthen human rights in Egypt is nothing new. However, since 2014, we have seen a hard crackdown on civil society, Azza Soliman explains. Since then, a group of judges have investigated the work of numerous Egyptian NGOs, including foreign funding going to these organisations.
Several other organisations have had their accounts frozen and many rights defenders like Azza Soliman have been banned from travelling abroad or have faced jail time.
In 2021, Azza Soliman was successfully acquitted of the charges in the case against her in a terror court. It took a whole year before the travel ban was lifted, and it wasn’t until November of this year that the judge in her case finally announced that the freezing of both her personal and law firm accounts would be lifted. Consequently, the case against her finally seems to be closed.
“However, the situation in Egypt is really difficult right now. It makes me sad to think about how many young people are in prison right now. And it makes me angry that in many ways I have lost all those years.”
I use my anger
It is hard not to wonder why Azza Soliman didn’t quit working in Egypt a long time ago, given all the opposition she has faced. It would undoubtedly have been both easier and safer.
But Soliman tries to use her anger as fuel instead, she adds.
“I can sometimes get quite depressed about the situation. Disappointed that things aren’t getting any better. Yet, I keep going because I can feel that this anger is not directed at myself or my people, but at the regime we are subject to. There are many people who deserve better lives, a fair society, and I still believe that the law is the way to get there, so this is where I find my purpose and the sense in continuing,” she says.
For her, the most important goal is to improve Egyptian family law. Soliman, CEWLA and many other NGOs have been working on achieving this goal for years.
In 2022, Egypt established a committee to revise the Egyptian Personal Status Law. CEWLA has since published their own draft legislation and collected signatures together with other NGOs.
At the same time, Azza Soliman also started to look at the meaning of her work through a different lens.
A symbol of justice
“Alongside the big goals we work towards, I focus on the tiny results that we achieve along the way. If I help a mum to see her children who have been kidnapped by their father, that is progress. When we actually see tiny changes in legislation when it comes to women’s economic and social rights, that is progress. My goals have become small and manageable, so I can see that my work actually makes a difference.”
At the same time, it gives her energy and strengthens her faith that things are going in the right direction, that there are young people fighting new battles using new tools, even though these are difficult times.
Like when the #MeToo wave began in Egypt and thousands of Egyptians shared their experiences on social media and fought in digital protests for the right to a life free from sexual harassment.
“Many young people started sharing pictures of me and thanking me and other feminists for paving the way for them to fight on. To them, I was a symbol of justice. It really meant a lot to me at a time when I couldn’t travel and could barely work,” she says and continues:
“And experiences like that give me hope for the future. I see that there are many new leaders. There are many who carry the feminist movement and the work for equality forward. We’ll keep going,” she concludes.