Egypt: ‘Dozens Detained Secretly’

Egyptian state officials either refuse to provide any kind of inform about detainees or deny having them in detention at all, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Since 2013 military overthrow about 40,000 people are claimed to have been detained. Most were members or supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood but also secular and liberal activists, World Bulletin reported.

HRW managed to document five cases of disappearances between April 2014 and June 2015. In all these cases authorities refused to reveal their whereabouts or simply denied the fact of their detention. However, whereabouts of three people were determined only days or weeks after their disappearances. It was done by authorities acknowledging the detention or relatives of the detainees have seen them in some detention facilities.

In June 2015, Freedom for the Brave, an independent group offering support to detainees, documented some 164 of enforced disappearance since April and said that the whereabouts of at least 66 remained unknown.

It listed 64 people whose whereabouts were revealed after more than 24 hours, the maximum time allowed to detain someone without charge under Egyptian law.

Egypt’s interior ministry has not commented on the HRW report but has previously denied carrying out enforced disappearances.