According to a Human Rights Watch report, Egyptian officials have arrested over 40 political and legal advocates in the past month.
By Trista Youssef
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has stated, “Many of those arrested were people who provided humanitarian and legal support to families of political detainees.” HRW also claims that the political prisoners are being kept in “undisclosed locations.”
Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW, said, “The Egyptian security agencies’ repression now extends to disappearing those brave men and women who have been trying to protect the disappeared and to end this abusive practice.” He added that the government “wants to quash what remains of Egyptian civil society.”
Among the detainees are Ezzat Ghoniem, executive coordinator of Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, and Hoda Abdel Moneim, a lawyer and a former member of the National Council for Human Rights, and Abdel Moneim was also spokesperson for Egypt’s Women Revolutionary Coalition.
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According to a firsthand report from a family member, Moneim and took her in a police car by Egyptian security forces on November 1. Her location is still unknown.
Egyptian officials also arrested Muslim Brotherhood activist Aisha Khairat al-Shater and her husband Mohamed Abu Hourayra, a former spokesperson for Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms.
HRW called on Egyptian authorities to “immediately reveal all the detainees’ whereabouts, release all of those arrested solely for exercising their rights, and bring any others swiftly before a judge to review their detention.”
