The government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is harassing and intimidating the families of activists in the United States, targeting at least four families since August, a coalition of human rights groups said Friday.  

Egyptian authorities have also gone after the families of critics living in Turkey, Germany and the United Kingdom, the New York-based Human Rights Watch and 21 other organizations said Friday, accusing security forces of “unlawful home raids, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and prolonged detention of family members without trial or charges.” 

“The Egyptian families of dissidents abroad have been increasingly caught in President al-Sisi’s government web of oppression,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “President al-Sisi should immediately rein in his security forces and end these hostage-like arrests.”

Egyptian security forces raided the homes of Egyptian-American activist Mohamed Soltan’s relatives last weekend and arrested two of his cousins. The arrests are seen as retaliation for the lawsuit Soltan filed against former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi in June. Soltan, who was held as a political prisoner in Cairo for between 2013 and 2015, accuses Beblawi of orchestrating his torture in detention.