Geneva, 7 November 2017
Egypt Project
Detention Watch
“Committee for Justice” documented the arrest and enforced disappearance of 10 family members of an escaped prisoner on 27 and 28 August 2017 and from the victims’ house in Helwan
“Mahmoud Abu Hassiba”, who is convicted in the case of “Helwan brigades”, escaped while being deported to prison. Consequently, the police and national security officers arrested his first, second and third-degree relatives to get Mahmoud to appear.
On 27 August 2017, at 20 o`clock, security forces arrived at Mahmoud’s wife, Aya, family house and arrested her and her father. At 23 o`clock they came back and arrested Abdullah, Aya’s brother. Later the father was released.
On 28 August 2017, they arrested:
1. Abu Hassiba Mohamed, 63 years old
2. Afaf Hussein, 50 years old.
3. Omaima Hussein, 43 years old
4. Amr Abou Hassiba, 36 years old
5. Ayman Hussein, 41 years old
6. Hussein Ayman, 18 years old
7. Mohamed Yassin, 47 years old
8. Mohammed Jamal, 35 years old
They all were taken to the Helwan Police Station before disappearing. One of them due to her pregnancy said that the officers threatened them to kill Mahmoud when they recapture him.
Most of the disappeared family members work as employees at Helwan university and got suspended from their work on the ground of no show. The police station refuses to admit their arrest and provide the remaining family member with papers to prove that they are detained. The rest of the family who haven’t been arrested yet are at the same risk, they had to change their places of residency because of their fear of encountering the same fate. “Committee for Justice” stresses that useing and arresting of family members and parents is one of the most common crimes committed by the Egyptian security authorities during the last period, especially when it comes to cases involved in political opponents or terrorism crimes.
During the last three months, “Committee for justice” has identified 188 cases of forced disappearance, of which 70 have appeared, but the others are still missing, and no one even knows anything about them. In it’s press release on 15th September 2017, the UN working team on Enforced Disappearances stated that “cases of enforced disappearance in Egypt are greatly worrying”.
As stated in their last annual report, the team has worked with 101 cases of enforced disappearance since January 2017 to the end of August 2017, which is a huge number. Take into consideration that they work on the same file since they started working in Egypt in 1984.“Committee for Justice” calls upon Egyptian authorities to disclose the detainees’ whereabouts and respect their human rights enshrined in international, regional and domestic Egyptian laws.
