Articles for

On 4 November 2016, the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) adopted a draft report containing the recommendations made by United Nations Member States to Syria during the State's review, which took place on 31 October 2016.

On 3 November 2016, Alkarama alerted the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the case of Qadry Samy Zaky Abd Elrahman Muafy, a 49-year-old Egyptian citizen from Kafr Saad, Damietta Governorate who was abducted by members of the Police in Mit Ghamr, Dakahlia Governorate on 29 October 2016.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has recently released its Opinion on the case of Adam Al Natour, a 21-year-old Polish and Jordanian student who was sentenced to four years of imprisonment by the State Security Court after a flawed trial during which confessions he was forced to sign under torture were used against him.

In late August 2016, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), a group of independent experts, adopted Opinion n°42/2016; in which they qualify the detention of Ahmed Yousry Zaky, an Egyptian student who was arrested on 5 May 2015, as "arbitrary".

Ten years ago, on 1 November 2006, Jordan enacted the "Prevention of Terrorism Act", in response to the 2005 hotel bombings in Amman that left 60 people dead. In 2014, faced with threats stemming from the spillover of the Syrian war, the law was amended and broadened to include nonviolent acts, in an attempt to legitimise the government's crackdown on peaceful expression and assembly. Journalists, political opponents, freedom of expression advocates and human rights defenders have since been put to trial under the pretext of "terrorism".

On 19 October 2016, the Lebanese Parliament approved a law creating an independent National Commission for Human Rights, Lebanon's National Human Rights Institution (NHRI), which includes a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), an independent body mandated to improve the conditions of those deprived of liberty by visiting places of detention. The law, that followed several recommendations issued by UN human rights mechanisms in that regard, finally provides Lebanon with two essential independent bodies supposed to enhance the protection and promotion of human rights.

On 24 October 2016, Djiboutian authorities released Abdi Aden Cheik Ali, a citizen who had been arbitrarily arrested on 20 July 2016 in Ali-Sabieh following the dissemination of a video denouncing the lack of water in the region, after more than three months in arbitrary detention. Upon release, he claimed having been detained in very difficult conditions.

On 25 October 2016, Walid Diab, a 18-year-old Lebanese citizen from Tripoli, was released from the juvenile section of Roumieh prison where he was detained, following a release order issued the same day by the Juvenile Court in Tripoli.

On 25 October 2016, Alkarama solicited the urgent intervention of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) with regards to the final sentencing to 20 years in prison of former President Mohamed Morsi and other members of his staff, as a result of an Egyptian Court of Cassation's ruling on 22 October 2016.

On 12 October 2016, the Alkarama Foundation launched the #KingdomofArbitraryDetention campaign to address arbitrary detention and the prosecution of human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia.