Lawsuit
Published on February 5, 2026
On August 20, 2025, 22-year-old Yasin El Sammak and his minor brother, A.E., went with a friend to the Egyptian Mission to the UN in New York to protest the closing of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza. The friend tried to put a cheap metal chain around the Mission’s doors in a symbolic protest as the brothers watched from a public sidewalk, separated from the Mission by barricades. Egyptian agents immediately came out, forcing the friend to drop the chain and run.
The agents were unable to catch the friend, so they turned on the brothers. An agent hit Yasin with the chain the friend had dropped. Another agent grabbed the then-15-year-old A.E. and pushed him toward the Mission, forcibly pinning him against a wall.
Then, agents dragged Yasin and A.E. into the Mission, where they repeatedly hit Yasin with the chain and tried to suffocate him with a scarf he wore, holding A.E. to keep him from helping his brother. This attack ended only when New York City police officers arrived.
After attacking Yasin and his brother, the agents told police that they had been assaulted, leading the police to arrest Yasin and A.E. Due to these criminally false reports, Yasin and his teenage brother were arrested and forced to spend the night in jail separated from each other, before being charged. The entire incident was caught on video in broad daylight and the District Attorney’s Office has since dropped all charges.
Human Rights First, with co-counsel Ballard Spahr, filed a lawsuit against Egypt on behalf of Yasin and A.E. to hold Egypt accountable for attacking two U.S. citizens in midtown Manhattan.
