Articles for Egypt

On 2 September 2016, Alkarama referred the case of Mohammad Mahmoud Sadeq Ahmed, an Egyptian lawyer who disappeared on 30 August, to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). That day, Mahmoud Sadeq Ahmed was abducted by members of the police forces in Giza train station and has since gone missing, with the authorities refusing to provide information on him.

On 15 July 2016, Alkarama referred to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) the case of Omar Mabrouk, a young student currently detained in Giza, Cairo, and facing an unfair trial. Held in incommunicado detention since his unlawful extradition from Kuwait to Egypt in October 2015 and until April 2016, he was severely tortured to confess crimes he never committed.

On 8 July 2016, Alkarama referred to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health (SRH) the case of Mahmoud Hassan Sabry, who was arrested on 29 July 2015 in Cairo by Egyptian Homeland Security Forces and thrown from his apartment's balcony for allegedly having participated to "violent demonstrations", causing him severe body injuries and a partial paralysis.

On 28 June 2016, after more than a year of arbitrary detention and exposure to torture, eight young women were liberated from Port-Said prison after their acquittal by Damietta Criminal Court in Egypt, while two others remain detained to date.

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.