• EGYPT
  • August 13, 2018
  • 3 minutes read

Human Rights Organization: 1080 Arbitrary Arrests, 379 Enforced Disappearances in 6 months in Egypt

Human Rights Organization: 1080 Arbitrary Arrests, 379 Enforced Disappearances in 6 months in Egypt

In its report "Out of Coverage" released Saturday, the "Egyptian Coordination Committee for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) monitored approximately 379 forcible disappearances and nearly 1,080 arbitrary arrests in the first half of 2018.


The committee said: "while international forums are full of repeated human rights appeals to the Egyptian government demanding that it respects human rights and limits violations against citizens, Egyptian authorities continue to commit further violations and utter denials of these charges, alleging that they are baseless and unfounded accusations; such practice is quite clear in the matter of forcible disappearance and arbitrary detention."


The committee demanded the concerned authorities to immediately end "all forms of arbitrary arrests, whether forcible disappearance or arbitrary detention, especially for those who have not been charged, and must immediately end their pre-trial detention," calling on these authorities to afford every citizen the rights recognized by the Constitution and the law and to respect privacy and personal correspondences.


The human rights organization called for an end to "the state of emergency that abolishes the constitutional and legal guarantees of human rights; restructuring committees to accept the presidential pardon, in order to be more neutral; expanding the scope of releases, so as to reach the state of zero prisoners of conscience in the prisons; and accelerating accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance."


The Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms said it looked forward to "the Egyptian State’s responsiveness to the requests of the UN human rights rapporteurs to visit the country." Adding that: "the concerned authorities should take care of the complaints they receive, especially those that concern enforced disappearances and the fate of the victims, and seriously seek the release of all political prisoners without proven charges or if the charges are proven fabricated or not serious."