‘Egypt is a giant prison’

Azza Soliman was due to board a plane to attend a conference in Jordan when security officials at Cairo airport turned her away, saying a court order banned her from travelling.

The veteran human rights lawyer and feminist was one of at least six activists, lawyers and journalists prevented from leaving Egypt in the space of a week.

Rights groups say 217 people were banned from travel between June 2014 and September 2016 -- 115 of them government critics.

They see restrictions as part of a wider move by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to silence opponents and erase freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak´s 30-year rule.

Soliman said she discovered after being turned back at the airport on Nov.

19 that her personal assets and those of her non-governmental organisation (NGO) had been frozen, even though she was not aware of any legal case against her. "We are in a state that tramples on the law and constitution.

They are acting like thieves in the night," she told Reuters.

"I wasn´t shown a single official paper saying I´ve been banned from travel or that my assets were frozen."

Four days later on Nov 23, officials banned from travel a veteran activist who runs a centre that rehabilitates torture victims and a journalist who aired a television segment critical of the government.

Another journalist was banned on Nov 24 and a prominent women´s rights campaigner on Nov 25. The rash of travel bans prompted a rebuke from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, who said they were part of an effort to silence critics.

"Restrictions imposed on...freedom of movement have regrettably become routine in what is seen as a broader crackdown against Egyptian civil society that has continued unabated since 2011," Michel Forst said in a statement.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said police do not stop anyone from travel unless a court or prosecutor has ordered it.

"It is not the airport security officer´s job to tell people why they are banned," he said.

Airport security officials echoed those points but said that when prominent activists attempt to travel, passport control can consult security or intelligence agencies who sometimes order people stopped.

The Interior Ministry denied there was a government crackdown.

But Egypt´s human rights record is coming under increasing scrutiny, inclduing from close ally the United States.

The US State Department´s 2015 rights report, released in April, highlighted restrictions on academic freedom and civil society as well as the impunity for security forces who torture and kill.