Articles for Egypt

On 4 november 2010, Alkarama sent Mr Haouli's case to the Special Rapporteur on torture (SRT), requesting his intervention with the Egyptian authorities to open a full and impartial investigation in order to establish the facts behind the acts torture committed against him and to prosecute those responsible.

Alkarama is following with increased concern the raids and arrests being made by the Egyptian security apparatus against the opposition Muslim Brotherhood group, in the wake of its recent announcement that it will participate in the coming parliamentary elections.
The Egyptian security apparatus has launched an extensive campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood, the ruling party's chief domestic rival, following its announcement that it intended to field candidates in the coming parliamentary elections in 30% of seats.

Alkarama today submitted the case of Mr Mohamed Aouda to the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

The group are all members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned opposition group in Egypt. Early this month they were involved in a peaceful sit-in to protest the physical molestation and beating of a female student by Al-Azhar University security guards in Zagazig. She would later suffer from internal bleeding.

The seven students have since been arrested, and are currently in police custody in Zagazig.

Omar Makhlouf has consistently been denied proper medical treatment while in custody. The Egyptian authorities are in direct violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 5 which states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" and Article 9 which states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

This was the first hearing in workers' trial, which took place on Sunday 22 August 2010 at Egypt's Military Tribunal - one of Egypt's ‘special courts', frequently used by the Egyptian government to suppress activists and opponents.

The following eight individuals from the Helwan Engineering Industries Company are on trial:

According to Alkarama's sources, Hossam Raif Ahmed Al-Teky, a resident of Qena governorate, was buying flour at the local store when security officers from the Dishna police investigative bureau entered the shop - arresting Hossam and the shop owner.

Mese'ed Al-Shaf'i, 56, spent nearly a month in solitary confinement at State Security Investigative (SSI) services headquarters in Nasr City, Cairo. During this isolation period he was exposed to torture, while his family and lawyer had no idea of his whereabouts. He eventually reappeared at Al-Makhoum prison on 20 May 2010, where he remains illegally detained in total absence of any legal proceedings.

On 30 June 2010, Alkarama, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and nine Egyptian NGOs called for the release of all detainees held for reasons other than "drug related or terrorist offences", including Hani Nazeer and other bloggers still detained for having freely expressed their opinions.