At 1am on 20 November 2009, Security services released Dr Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar along with Khaled al-Sayed al-Beltagy and Ahmad Ali Abbas. Their release brings to a close the case of the "International Organisation of the Muslim Brotherhood" following the release of all 25 members of this group.

 

On 15 November 2009, in the north-eastern town of Deir al-Zour, Yusuf Abdallah al-Dheeb  (يوسف عبد الله الذيب) was arrested from his home by armed gunmen dressed in civilian clothes - the identity of the forces responsible for his arrest remains unknown. To date, his family is still unaware of his whereabouts.

Alkarama has been mandated to submit a complaint to the Human Rights Committee concerning the disappearances of Tahar and his eldest son Bashir Bourefis, arrested in 1996 in the province of Jijel and gone missing ever since.

On 5 June 2008, Yasser al-Wazir left his home and made his way to his local mosque for Friday prayers. Somewhere between his home and the mosque he disappeared - and his family was unable to contact him on his mobile phone. It was only in mid-September 2008 that his family learned that he was being detained at the Political Security prison in Sana'a.

Ahmad al-Mahfili, whose case Alkarama had previously submitted to numerous UN special procedures, was finally released on 11 November 2009 - after more than nine months of arbitrary detention at Political Security headquarters in Sana'a.

Alkarama submitted to the UN special procedures the cases of the extrajudicial killings of Farouk Mohamed Mahmoud Al-Sayed (فاروق محمد محمود السيد) and Hassan Abdel Razak Shandi (حمسن عبد الرزاق شندي ). The Egyptian authorities are held responsible.

Alkarama has received news from inside Egypt of the release of several members of Muslim Brotherhood, some of whose cases Alkarama had previously submitted to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD).

The Egyptian Military Court of Appeals today rejected the appeal lodged by Mr. Khairat Al Shatter and 17 other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood against sentences ranging from 3 to 10 years issued against them by Egypt's Supreme Military Court on 15 April 2008.

In a message released on 23 October 2009, the 22 detainees accused of belonging to the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah asserted that "state security intelligence has detained and tortured us in different ways ranging from the use of electricity on all parts of our bodies, to forcing us to stand all night, to threatening to bring our mothers, children and brothers and subject them to torture while forcing us to listen." Arrested between December 2008 and April 2009, the detainees were taken to Egyptian State Security Intelligence (SSI) headquarters in Nasr Cit