Egypt: 3 Students Missing Since the Raba’a Massacre
On 22 October 2014, Alkarama sent a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the abduction of three Egyptian students. Mohamed Hammad Ali Omar (20 years old), Mohammed Khader Ali Mohamed (21) and Mohamed Abdulsalam Ali Mohamed Abdulhamid (21) disappeared since their arrest by Egyptian security forces on 14 August 2013 during the Raba'a al Adawiya and al-Nahda squares massacres in Cairo. Their families are still looking for answers.
All had taken part in the peaceful sit-ins, organised on the two squares to protest against the army's overthrow of the Morsi government. On 14 August 2013, by order of the authorities, the army and the police violently dispersed the demonstrations, leaving behind them over a thousand dead and thousands injured. To date, no official has been prosecuted, and despite the repeated calls from the international community and the civil society, the authorities never launched any independent investigation into these killings which, by their scope and conduct, amount to a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
As the authorities started charging the demonstrators, the three students ran away from Raba'a Al Adawiya Square. Omar was with his sister on El Nasr road near Al Azhar University when he was hit in the shoulder by a bullet fired by the mounted police. Reaching up to him, the police took him away towards an unknown destination. As for Mohamed, he was arrested by a joint patrol of the police and the army in front of the Tiba Outlet mall next to the Raba'a mosque, whilst Abdulhamid was on Aviation Street at the time of his abduction.
Their families have not heard from them since that day. Despite having contacted several agencies, judicial bodies and organisations, as well as filed several complaints, including some against Al Sisi and his Ministry of the Interior, Mohamed Ibrahim, all their efforts to locate their children have gone unheeded, as the authorities keep on denying the detention of Omar, Mohamed and Abdulhamid.
Given the context in which their disappearances occurred, and due to the violent repression suffered by Egypt's political opponents in Egypt in the last year, the three young students are at high risk of seeing their incommunicado detention extended indefinitely, as well as to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment during their detention.
To shed light on their disappearances, Alkarama sent a communication to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) to call upon the Egyptian authorities to reveal Omar's, Mohamed's and Abdulhamid's whereabouts, and to allow their families and legal counsels to visit them without any restrictions. In the absence of credible charges against them, the authorities should release them immediately. It is crucial that Egypt curbs the phenomenon of enforced disappearances, which specifically targets political opponents, and adopts measures in order to comply with its international human rights obligations.
For more information or an interview, please contact the media team at media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1007 Ext: 810)