On 21 December 2016, Alkarama alerted the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) of the case of Mohamed Saber Mohamed Saber, an Egyptian man who disappeared on 12 September 2016. That day, Saber was abducted by members of the Police Forces at home in Alexandria, and has since gone missing, with the authorities denying any implication in his abduction and refusing to disclose his whereabouts. His case adds to the thousands of disappearances that occur in the country on a regular basis.
On 12 September 2016, Saber was at home with his family when four members of the Police Forces, two dressed in uniforms and two in civilian clothes, came and asked for him. They arrested him without any arrest warrant, nor providing any reason for the arrest, before taking him to an unknown location. Despite several attempts of the family to try to locate him, namely through filing a complaint with the Public Prosecutor and the Director of Security of Alexandria, his whereabouts remain unknown and information has been constantly denied to his relatives.
“We witness another case of enforced disappearance and a consequent denial from the relevant authorities to provide information and to even recognise the disappearance,” said Simone Di Stefano, Alkarama’s Regional Legal Officer for the Nile. “There is in Egypt a clear pattern of systematic disappearances, we remain extremely concerned at the escalation of this phenomenon”.
In light of the increasing number of enforced disappearances reported in Egypt, with the last case concerning Saber Mohamed Saber Mohamed, Alkarama asked the WGEID to promptly intervene with the authorities requesting clarification over his fate and whereabouts. In April 2016, Alkarama had sent a general allegation to the WGEID to raise its concern over the systematic character of this practice. Alkarama thus calls on the Egyptian authorities to first release all individuals secretly detained and to place them under the protection of the law, and secondly urges them to immediately halt this systematic practice that constitutes a crime against humanity. It finally calls on them to urgently open prompt, independent and impartial investigations into every report of enforced disappearance, while prosecuting and punishing its authors accordingly.
For more information or an interview, please contact media@alkarama.org (Tel: +41 22 734 1008).