Press Release
Published on February 6, 2026
New York, NY — Human Rights First, with co-counsel Ballard Spahr, has filed a lawsuit against Egypt on behalf of two American brothers—including a minor—who were beaten by Egyptian security agents in New York City in an attack caught on video in broad daylight.
On August 20, 2025, 22-year-old Yasin El Sammak and his minor brother, A.E.,¹ went with a friend to the Egyptian Mission to the UN 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 dropped chain. Another 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.
“In Egypt, the government can attack protestors without any legal consequence, and the agents probably thought they were beyond the law, especially when they dragged our clients into a diplomatic building,” said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, special counsel for Human Rights First. “But, here, we can hold Egypt accountable for beating people who were standing on a public sidewalk in midtown Manhattan just to express an opinion.”
After attacking Yasin and his brother, the agents told police that they had been assaulted, leading the police to arrest our clients. 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 District Attorney’s Office has since dropped all charges in light of the clear video evidence.
Our lawsuit seeks to hold Egypt accountable for its acts of violence against Yasin and his minor brother and for the physical and emotional injuries the two sustained due to that violence.
“No government has the right to use violence to silence dissent on American soil,” said Rushmi Bhaskaran, partner with Ballard Spahr. “Under U.S. law, Egypt may not act with impunity. We are honored to partner with Human Rights First to hold Egypt accountable for its brazen acts of violence.”
Human Rights First has long called attention to the Egyptian government’s blatant disregard for human rights, including its transnational repression, i.e., importing oppressive practices from Egypt to the U.S. Last year, Human Rights First called on the U.S. government to impose targeted financial and visa sanctions on a senior Egyptian official and a U.S. company with ties to the Egyptian government for their apparent involvement in the bribery of former U.S. Senator Robert Menendez.
Now, through this case, Egypt must be held accountable for its attack on two American citizens on American soil.
We also call on the U.S. government to press Egypt to waive any immunity from prosecution that the involved agents may have had. If those agents have left the United States, the State Department should ban them from re-entering the country.
[1] As required by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we identify A.E. in the litigation solely by initials.
