Egypt’s National Security Agency (NSA) is abducting, torturing and forcibly disappearing people in an effort to intimidate opponents and wipe out peaceful dissent, said Amnesty International in a damning new report published today which highlights an unprecedented spike in enforced disappearances since early 2015.
Egypt: ‘Officially, you do not exist’: Disappeared and tortured in the name of counter-terrorism reveals a trend which has seen hundreds of students, political activists and protesters, including children as young as 14, vanish without trace at the hands of the state. On average three to four people per day are seized according to local NGOs, usually when heavily armed security forces led by NSA officers storm their homes. Many are held for months at a time and often kept blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire period.
“This report reveals the shocking and ruthless tactics that the Egyptian authorities are prepared to employ in their efforts to terrify protesters and dissidents into silence,” said Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International.
“Enforced disappearance has become a key instrument of state policy in Egypt. Anyone who dares to speak out is at risk, with counter-terrorism being used as an excuse to abduct, interrogate and torture people who challenge the authorities.
“The Egyptian authorities have repeatedly denied that enforced disappearances exist in the country, but the cases featured in this report provide strong evidence to the contrary. The report exposes not only the brutality faced by those disappeared but also the collusion between national security forces and judicial authorities, who have been prepared to lie to cover their tracks or failed to investigate torture allegations, making them complicit in serious human rights violations.”
Enforced disappearances and torture
The report features the detailed cases of 17 people subjected to enforced disappearance, who were held incommunicado for periods ranging between several days to seven months, cut off from the outside world and denied access to their lawyers or families or any independent judicial oversight.
The report also includes harrowing accounts of torture of victims during interrogation sessions lasting up to seven hours, in order to extract “confessions” later used as evidence against them during questioning by prosecutors and to obtain convictions at trials. In some cases, those tortured were children.
One of the most shocking cases examples is that of Mazen Mohamed Abdallah, who was subjected to enforced disappearance at the age of 14 in September 2015 and suffered horrendous abuse, including being repeatedly raped with a wooden stick in order to extract a false “confession.”
Aser Mohamed, who was also 14 at the time of his arrest, was beaten, given electric shocks all over his body and suspended from his limbs in order to extract a false “confession” when he was forcibly disappeared for 34 days in January 2016 in NSA offices in 6th of October district of Greater Cairo. He was eventually brought before a state security prosecutor who warned him that he would face further electric shocks when he tried to retract his “confessions.”
The two boys are among five children forcibly disappeared for up to 50 days whose cases are documented in the report. In some cases, even after the child’s release was ordered by the Public Prosecutor, security forces would subject them to enforced disappearance for a second time before bringing fresh charges against them.
In other cases, family members were arrested in order to pressure the principal target into giving a “confession.” In July 2015 Atef Farag was arrested alongside his 22-year-old son, Yehia. Their family believe Atef was arrested for participating in a sit-in and his son, who has a disability, was arrested to pressure him to “confess” to serious offenses. Both were held for 159 days and now have been charged with belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
