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On 21 December 2016, Alkarama alerted the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the case of Mohamed Saber Mohamed Saber, an Egyptian man who disappeared on 12 September 2016. That day, Saber was abducted by members of the Police Forces at home in Alexandria, and has since gone missing, with the authorities denying any implication in his abduction and refusing to disclose his whereabouts.

On 20 December 2016, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) concerning the case of Mohamed Saad Zekillah, a young student who was arrested on 9 November 2016 by the Homeland Security Forces. He was secretly detained for 17 days, during which he was repeatedly tortured. He reappeared on 23 November 2016, when he was brought before the Public Prosecutor of Alexandria and charged with “belonging to a terrorist group”.

On 6 December 2016, the two Palestinian brothers Saeed and Nasr Al Abbasi witnessed about 100 Israeli soldiers destroying their family house in Silwan neighbourhood, East Jerusalem, leaving them and their families homeless. Only few days before, the Central Court of Jerusalem had issued a demolition order alleging that their house had been constructed without the due licence as it was built on “green open space”. This occurred three years after Saeed, a 36-year-old taxi driver, and his brother Nasr, aged 29, started to build their family house.

Alkarama is deeply concerned by the ongoing crackdown against peaceful opposition politicians and demonstrators in Khartoum, Sudan. This repression led to the arbitrary arrest and detention of dozens of political opponents by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in November 2016.

On 30 November 2016, Alkarama and Human Rights Guardians referred to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI Syria) the case of Hani Hussein, a 37-year-old Syrian from Qamishli, who disappeared following his

On 1 December 2016, Essa Al Hamid’s sentence was increased on appeal to 11 years in prison, a fine of 100.000 Riyals and a travel ban of 11 years for his peaceful human rights activism within the Saudi Civil and political Rights Association (ACPRA). Alkarama, concerned about the pattern of criminalisation of human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia, thus solicited the urgent intervention of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders (SR HRD), Michel Forst.

Between November 2012 and March 2014 five Syrian men, all members of the same extended family originally from Hama, disappeared after their arrests by pro-Assad security forces.

On 28 July 2016, the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) of Riyadh sentenced Abdelkarim Al Hawaj to death after a flawed trial in which, confessions made under torture were admitted as sole evidence. On 24 November 2016, Alkarama raised his case with the Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions (SUMEX), calling for her intervention with the Saudi authorities to demand the repeal of Abdelkarim’s death sentence.

Nader Snoussi Ali Al Omrani, a 44-year-old well respected religious scholar, was abducted on 6 October 2016 in Tripoli by several members of the RADA forces, which pledged allegiance to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). His family has not heard from him since; however, they fear he was killed while secretly detained following the release of a video in which a young man confesses to his execution.

On 15 November 2016, the Egyptian Parliament proposed a flawed new draft NGO Law that replaces both the previous 2002 Law on Associations and the draft NGO Law that was presented by the government earlier this year.