Urgent Action: Please Help Detained Researcher In Critical Condition

Detained human rights researcher Ibrahim Ezz El-Din’s health has deteriorated in Tora prison putting him at particular risk if exposed to COVID-19.

Ibrahim remains in pre-trial detention following his arrest on 11 June 2019 and enforced disappearance for 167 days until his appearance in front of the Supreme State Security Prosecution on 26 November 2019.

Take Action: Write An Appeal

You can Write an Appeal in your Own Words or use the Model Letter you can download from:
https://www.norwichamnesty.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FI10419_2.pdf

Please send your letter as soon as possible, before 21st May 2020

Send your Letter to:

Public Prosecutor Hamada al-Sawi
Office of the Public Prosecutor
Madinat al-Rehab Cairo,
Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax: +202 2577 4716
E-mail : m.office@ppo.gov.eg

Please send a copy to:

His Excellency Mr Tarek Ahmed Ibrahim Adel
Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt
26 South Street, W1K 1DW
Tel.: 020 7499 3304/2401
Fax: 020 7491 1542
E-mail address: egtamboff@gmail.com egyemblondon@mfa.gov.eg

You can also send your letter to:

President
Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
Office of the President
Al Ittihadia Palace
Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt
Fax +202 2391 1441
Email: p.spokesman@op.gov.eg
Twitter: @AlsisiOfficial
Salutation: Dear President

Minister of Interior Mahmoud Tawfiq
Ministry of the Interior
25 El Sheikh Rihan Street
Bab al-Louk, Cairo, Egypt
Fax: +202 2794 5529
Email: center@iscmi.gov.eg or E.HumanRightsSector@moi.gov.eg
Twitter: @moiegy
Salutation: Dear Minister

Further Information

Ibrahim is a researcher at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), where he focuses on the right to housing. On the night of 11 June 2019, plainclothes Egyptian security forces arrested Ibrahim. He was taken from the street near his Cairo home in the area of Moqattam and was forcibly disappeared for 167 days.

Ibrahim Ezz El-Din first appeared in front of a prosecutor on 26 November 2019. According to his lawyer, he appeared physically weak and had lost a considerable amount of weight. He told the prosecutor that he was tortured during his incommunicado detention to extract information about his relationship to the ECRF, and about the organization’s work. He also complained about being held in inhumane and degrading conditions of detention at several security agency locations. Since then, the prosecutor has been extending his pre-trial detention every 15 days pending investigations.

He is the fifth person affiliated with the ECRF to have been arrested since 2016. His arrest follows the detention on 13 May 2019 of labour rights lawyer, Haytham Mohamdeen, who also works at ECRF, on trumped-up charges of “aiding a terrorist group”. In May 2018, Egyptian security forces arrested Amal Fathy, a human rights defender and wife of the Executive Director of ECRF and former Amnesty International Researcher Mohamed Lotfy, over a video critical of the authorities’ failure to address rampant sexual harassment. She was conditionally released in December 2018 and put under house arrest until 14 March 2020, when the Supreme State Security Prosecution lifted all precautionary measures imposed on her. In 2016, authorities had also arrested the ECRF Minorities Programme Director Mina Thabet and head of the board Ahmed Abdallah, before releasing them without charge.

Ibrahim Ezz El-Din has been unable to complete his master’s thesis as scheduled in December 2019 given his arrest. While Ibrahim’s lawyer obtained permission for Ibrahim to receive books in prison, he was prevented from writing his thesis by prison authorities.

Ibrahim’s arrest came amid a human rights crisis in Egypt, characterized by a crackdown on independent civil society and arrests of hundreds of individuals over their legitimate work or peaceful expression or assembly. The crackdown has affected journalists, football fans, critics, politicians and staff of civil society organizations. Many of those arrested have been subjected to enforced disappearances, before being charged with unfounded “terrorism” charges and held in pre-trial detention for months, or even years, without trial (see www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde12/1399/2019/en/).

Amnesty International has documented Egyptian security forces’ use of enforced disappearances as a tool against political activists and protesters, including students and children in Egypt (see www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde12/4368/2016/en/). Hundreds of people forcibly disappeared were held with no access to their lawyers or families and no external judicial oversight. This pattern of abuse became particularly evident after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appointed Major-General Magdy Abd el-Ghaffar as Minister of Interior in March 2015. ECRF is one of the main Egyptian NGOs that has been working extensively on the issue of enforced disappearances.