After the 2013 coup, Ibrahim's husband went into exile because he wanted to remain a journalist, while she founded a shoe manufacturing company in Cairo.[1] In January 2021, she told Jeune Afrique that it was dangerous to protest and to be a journalist who didn't work on behalf of the regime, explaining that "We now live under a dictator worse than Mubarak [...] Any protest is punishable by sanctions. The protest is now being done underground."[21]