The Committee for Justice (CFJ) has submitted an input in response to the call for contributions to the Secretary-General’s forthcoming report on missing persons.
The submission focuses on the situation in Egypt between July 2024 and March 2026 and documents patterns of enforced disappearance affecting political opponents, human rights defenders, online activists, and individuals perceived as dissenting voices. Drawing on CFJ’s monitoring and documentation, the report highlights how enforced disappearance continues to operate as a systematic practice in Egypt.
CFJ explains that many cases of missing persons in the Egyptian context originate from arrests carried out by officers of the National Security Agency or other security bodies. Individuals are frequently apprehended without judicial warrants, often from their homes, workplaces, or public spaces, and are subsequently held incommunicado in undisclosed locations for periods ranging from few days to several years. During this period, authorities typically deny holding the individual in custody, leaving families without information regarding their fate or whereabouts.
After days or weeks of disappearance, many detainees reappear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution in cases related to terrorism or national security. However, the period of disappearance is not officially acknowledged, and detainees often report that they were interrogated without access to lawyers and subjected to coercion. This pattern effectively places individuals outside the protection of the law for a defined period and transforms enforced disappearance into a key driver of missing persons cases.
The Committee for Justice has documented more than 670 cases of enforced disappearance over the past decade through its Justice Watch Archive. In many of these cases, individuals remain disappeared for prolonged periods, with some citizens having remained missing for more than ten years and their fate or whereabouts still unknown. In other cases, disappeared individuals later reappear before the Supreme State Security Prosecution after extended periods of disappearance, without any official acknowledgment of the period during which they were held incommunicado or any investigation into the violations committed during that time. The Committee for Justice has documented, for example, the case of Mohamed Yehia Rashad Farhat, who appeared on November 2025 before prosecutorial authorities after more than five years of enforced disappearance.
The submission further highlights the structural lack of accountability for these practices. Complaints filed by families rarely result in effective investigations, and there is no publicly available evidence of security officials being held accountable for enforced disappearance. The absence of specific legislation criminalizing enforced disappearance in domestic law further contributes to entrenched impunity.
CFJ also underscores the severe consequences faced by families of disappeared persons, including legal uncertainty, financial hardship, and psychological trauma. Women and children are particularly affected, especially when the disappeared person was the primary breadwinner. Without official acknowledgment of detention or death, families often face significant barriers in accessing social protection, managing property or financial matters, and obtaining effective remedies.
CFJ calls for strengthened international attention to the patterns of enforced disappearance in Egypt and stresses the need for effective accountability mechanisms, independent investigations, and measures to support victims and their families.
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