Egypt UN Staff Accused of Assaulting US Citizens in NYC

EGyptian government employees wielding a chain and stick detained and assaulted a 22-year-old man and his 15-year-old brother at the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations during a pro-Palestine protest in New York on Wednesday, the brothers’ parents told The Intercept. The New York City Police Department then arrested the two brothers on assault charges, and strangulation for the younger one, according to their parents and an NYPD spokesperson. 

Yasin Elsamak, 22, and Ali Elsamak, 15, both U.S. citizens, were protesting the Egyptian government’s role in blockading the Rafah crossing into Gaza, cutting off essential food aid amid Israel’s ongoing genocide, their parents said.

Egyptian officials grabbed the teenager and dragged him and his older brother, who had attempted to intervene, inside the building, according to their parents and video of the incident published on social media. Their parents alleged that inside the building, Egyptian officials continued to beat Yasin in the legs with sticks before choking him with a chain and his own keffiyeh.

The Egyptian government did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. 

A video posted on X shows one man wrapping what appears to be a chain around the neck of one of the brothers, whom the family identified as Yasin, while another man beat him with a stick-like object. Another man is seen wrestling the other brother, identified by family as Ali, to the ground.

New York Police Department officers arrested the brothers on suspicion of assault but did not take any of the Egyptian government officials into custody, the family said. 

Their father, Akram Elsamak, said NYPD officers had turned him away when he attempted to visit his sons who were in police custody. The brothers told their parents that they were both interrogated by officers, including the 15-year-old, without a guardian or attorney present. Ali was released from custody the following day at 1 p.m., and Yasin was released around 6 p.m.

Egyptian Mission to the UN dragged 2 U.S. citizens inside the the building and repeatedly assaulted them earlier this evening.

The two were protesting outside the building when they were grabbed by staff & dragged inside. NYPD arrived & arrested them. Jail support now underway. pic.twitter.com/ixlXkWAxuR

— Talia Jane ❤️‍🔥 (@taliaotg) August 20, 2025

After his release, Yasin was hospitalized with injuries to his neck. He had difficulty swallowing and a 6-inch bruise on his right thigh, according to both parents. His teenage brother suffered minor injuries to his elbows.

“My oldest son said, ‘I had a fear that I would die there,’ and my younger one said, ‘I think if they didn’t have a glass door and were recording, they would kill us inside,’” their mother, Olga Elsamak, told The Intercept. 

An NYPD spokesperson said police had received a call around 4:40 p.m. about an assault outside the Egyptian government building at 304 East 44th Street, where officers arrived and found “two male individuals with complaints of pain throughout their bodies.” They took the two into custody and charged Ali, the 15-year-old, with strangulation and assault, and Yasin with assault alone. 

Akram Elsamak said he confronted NYPD officers, asking why his sons were charged when the video showed they were the ones being assaulted. He said an officer told him the video did not show the entire incident.

“‘Why did you arrest a minor and his brother without any evidence? And they were getting beat up by a foreign security, getting kidnapped from American soil inside an international building,’” he recalled asking the NYPD. “They couldn’t answer.” 

The NYPD did not comment on why they turned Akram away, nor on whether they interrogated a minor without a lawyer or guardian present. They also did not comment on whether NYPD officers were considering arrests of Egyptian officials. Their mother said that when the two brothers were released, they were visibly emotional, and Ali was crying. She criticized the lack of accountability from the NYPD. 

“I can expect it from the Egyptian security because this is a military-run country, but I wouldn’t expect it from a police force that’s supposed to protect American citizens,” Olga Elsamak said. Her husband Akram is originally from Egypt, where, in 2013, the Egyptian police and military killed hundreds of protesters in Cairo who had been protesting against the Egyptian government.

“For a father to see his both sons getting beat up with a chain, it is not something easy at all,” said their father, Akram Elsamak. “My sons went that day to stand and give their voice, that the Egyptian government has to open the border to pass a little bit of water and a piece of bread for the babies and children of Gaza before they get bombed and die — that was their only crime — and they were doing it in the American soil, on the sidewalk in the American soil, where we have right to protest and give our voice.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, decried the incident and their treatment by both Egyptian officials and the NYPD. DAWN was founded by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to his 2018 murder at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. 

“It appears that these Egyptian employees are used to policing protests in this manner in Egypt where basically you can beat and kill anybody criticizing the government and thought that that is the appropriate course of conduct here in the United States here in New York City,” Whitson told The Intercept. “I hope there will be justice and accountability to all these violent Egyptian employees accountable for viciously assaulting a child and his young brother in broad daylight, and it seems that they are so confident of their impunity that they thought nothing of it.”

Both of the brothers were protesting as a part of daily rallies organized by Palestinian liberation group Within Our Lifetime, which has protested outside government and U.N. buildings in New York of several nations including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel, demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza, said Nerdeen Kiswani, head of the group.

Olga Elsamak told The Intercept her sons “are still in shock, they are recovering. It’s going to take time for them to sort it out, but thank god they’re home, thank god they’re not in custody.”