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Wednesday 22 July 2015 - 09:01

Tens of Egyptians 'secretly' arrested, missing, Human Rights Watch says

Story Code : 475219
Detained protesters escorted by Egyptian security forces
Detained protesters escorted by Egyptian security forces
On Monday, the rights group said dozens of cases of enforced disappearances had been documented from 2013 through 2015.
 
    "Egyptian security forces have apparently snatched up dozens of people without a word about where they are or what has happened to them," said the HRW deputy Middle East director Joe Stork.
 
The HRW said three of the cases it documented involved individuals who had been found dead after being arrested and taken to an unknown location.
 
On June 4, Seyed al-Rassed, 46, was arrested in Qalyubia Province by plainclothes police officers and a Central Security Forces officer. Days later, his family was notified that his body, which bore torture marks, was at a mortuary.
 
The rights organization also listed a number of other individuals who remain missing.
 
The HRW added that the independent civil society organization Freedom for the Brave said in a report on June 7 that it had documented 164 cases of enforced disappearances since April 2015. The organization says 66 people are still missing. It later reported an additional 39 cases to the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), saying most of them took place in April and May.
 
The HRW says enforced disappearances are considered a serious violation of international human rights law. The US-based organization also said enforced disappearance is considered a crime against humanity if carried out systematically as a matter of policy.
 
"The failure of the public prosecution to seriously investigate these cases reinforces the nearly absolute impunity that security forces have enjoyed under President [Abdel Fattah] el-Sisi," Stork stated.
 
The Egyptian Interior Ministry has refused to comment on the issue of enforced disappearances.
 
More than 40,000 people have been detained in Egypt since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, the former Egyptian president, which came after a military coup in July 2013.
 
Following the coup led by Sisi, the then head of the armed forces and current president, the Egyptian military-backed government launched a crackdown on supporters of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
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