Amal Alamuddin Clooney Was Told She ‘Risked Arrest’ For Exposing The Egyptian Government’s Corruption

Human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin Clooney, who married George Clooney last September, has revealed in a new interview with the Guardian that a government official threatened to arrest her over her work exposing flaws in the Egyptian legal system.

In February of 2014, Clooney put together a report about corruption in the Egyptian courts. She wanted to present it in Cairo, the nation’s capital, but was blocked from doing so by officials who threatened to arrest her whole team.


“When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo. They said: ‘Does the report criticise the army, the judiciary, or the government?’ We said: ‘Well, yes.’ They said: ‘Well then, you’re risking arrest,’” Clooney told the Guardian.
Three al-Jazeera journalists were arrested and sentenced to jail time last June for exposing some of the same flaws in the Egyptian judicial system. Clooney is currently representing one of the three, Mohamed Fahmy. A judge agreed to a retrial for all three journalists on New Year’s Day (January 1).

Clooney says although she is skeptical of the court’s ability to follow through with a fair trial, she will continue to fight for Fahmy’s freedom.

“We have to continue and double our efforts to achieve his release in other ways. Unfortunately we have to conclude that we can’t rely on these Egyptian court processes to achieve a fair or swift result,” she said.