Youssef Alaa was arbitrarily arrested as a minor in Alexandria on July 3, 2014 and charged with joining the banned Muslim Brotherhood, preventing state institutions from doing their work, blocking roads, disrupting public and private transportation, and violating the law of demonstration under case No. 697 of 2014, juvenile misdemeanours. He was detained pending investigations, and acquitted on October 23, 2014. He was arbitrarily arrested again at the age of 16 on January 21, 2015, from an ambush on Abu Qir Street in Gilliam and detained amidst case No. 873 of 2015. He was released several months later and sentenced in absentia to six years in prison on April 27, 2018.