A scorching day inside Egypt’s Tanta Prison and Emad Kamil is straining to hear news from his relatives. They have been placed on one side of the hall with 50 other visitors. Emad is on the other side, over one metre away, with 15 other prisoners.

Two sets of wire mesh separate them, police officers patrol the space in between and Emad suspects there are informants present. A jumble of voices travel across the space. It’s impossible to get accurate information about the charges against him.

Aly Hussin Mahdy ignored his father’s text messages for quite some time. As a politically outspoken Egyptian asylum seeker living in Chicago, he was concerned about leaving an electronic trail that the feared intelligence services back home could read.