The Supreme State Security Court in Aswan Governorate (south of Cairo) sentenced 25 prisoners in Nubia to a fine of 50,000 pounds ($ 2,885) each and acquitted seven others in the case known as the "detainees of the detainees".
On 3 September 2017, Nubian activists organized a demonstration in Aswan under the slogan "Nubian Rally Day". The group sang Nubian songs during the demonstration and called for the right to return to what they consider their historic lands.
The demonstrators also called on the authorities to repeal a presidential decree classifying 16 villages from the Nubian territories as military zones and prohibiting the population from living there.
The Nubians (Nubian tribes) inhabited an area that stretches along the banks of the Nile River to the north of the Sudan and southernmost Egypt for thousands of years. In October 1963 they were forced to migrate from their villages on the banks of the Nile after the construction of the High Dam and sinking their lands. "Deportation" from the Nile "Motta" them, so they call the area of Nasr, which transferred to the Valley of hell to the cruelty of life away from the Nile.
In March 2018, eight human rights organizations declared their full rejection of all charges against detainees in the case, demanding that all charges against the accused be dropped and their immediate release.
The detainees entered an open hunger strike to protest their continued imprisonment, causing the death of Nubian activist Jamal Sorour as a result of a coma, and the prison administration delayed his transfer to hospital.
Article 236 of the Egyptian Constitution guarantees the right of returnees to the land of their ancestors within 10 years of the approval of the Constitution, and requires the state to carry out development projects there and preserve the culture and identity Nubian.