Articles for Egypt

On 24 June 2016, Alkarama sent a report to the Sub Committee on Accreditation (SCA) of the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (ICC-NHRI) in view of its review of

On 25 May 2016, Hany Mohamed Hassanin Sharaf, founder of the Civilized Alternative Party and former Egyptian Air Force pilot, was released from jail after spending more than six months in arbitrary detention. Prosecuted under trumped-up charges that were triggered by his political activism and in particular his work on the creation of a new opposition party, Hany was facing death penalty in case of a trial before a military court.

In late April 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), a group of independent experts, adopted WGAD Opinion n°7/2016.

Since the beginning of 2016, Alkarama has been documenting more and more cases of enforced disappearances in Egypt to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), including five new cases highlighted below. Omar Mohammed Ali Hamad and Mahmoud Ibrahim Mostafa Attia, have been missing since Rabaa Al Adawiya's massacre on 14 August 2013.

The transfer of two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanafir, to Saudi Arabia has been the subject of considerable criticism in Egypt. On 15 April 2015, few days after the announcement of this deal between the two countries, Egyptians peacefully gathered to protest against it. Although people initially took to the streets to express their discontent over the planned handover, many slogans were directed against the increasingly authoritarian drift of the regime and the state security apparatus. Similar peaceful protests were held on 25 April 2016 across the country.

On 24 January 2016, the Ministry of Interior declared having executed 32-year-old Mohamed Hamdan Mohamed Ali during a police operation in Beni Suef – a city located on the Nile’s shores, South of Cairo. The victim had however been arrested at work on 10 January 2016 and was missing since. Additionally, when his relatives were authorised to see his corpse, it bore evident marks of torture which made them believe that the authorities tried to cover-up the real circumstances of his death.

In late March 2016, Yasser Essawy Ahmed Essawy, a sales representative detained since his arrest in October 2013, was urgently hospitalised to receive surgery in a Cairo hospital. Disregarding the doctor’s recommendation, the prison personnel refused the continuation of his hospitalisation after his surgery and sent him back to prison before he had time to properly recover. Even though he was put in the medical section of Tora prison, Yasser Essawy, 41 years old, has been continuously refused medical care since.

Egyptian Homeland Security raided Mohamed Mohamed Sadiq Ayyad’s house and arrested him on 13 January 2016. Secretly detained for weeks, he was repeatedly tortured before being charged under various accusations, without the assistance of a lawyer. Still detained to date, he was only allowed to see his relatives for few minutes and his health state continues to deteriorate because he is refused medical care.

In March 2016, Alkarama sent two communications to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) regarding the disappearances in November 2015 and February 2016 of two Egyptian students, Ahmed Ihab Mohamed Al Naggar and Mohammed Mohammed Abdelmotaleb Al Husseini following their arrests by the authorities.

Alkarama has just solicited the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (UNSRT) regarding the continuous detention of 10 young women - most of whom are students -, since their arrest in Damietta streets on 5 May 2015.