A new wave of detentions and disappearances in Egypt

GlobalPost

CAIRO, Egypt — Esraa el-Taweel. Sohaib Saad. Omar Mohamed. Islam Ateeto. Magdy Ashour. These are some of the Egyptians who have disappeared, been arrested or killed by security forces in recent weeks. 

At least 163 people have been "forcibly disappeared" or "illegally detained" in the last two months, according to the the Freedom for the Brave campaign, a prisoners’ rights advocacy group. The whereabouts of 66 of those who were detained is still unknown.

While a crackdown on supporters of ousted president Mohammad Morsi, as well as against more secular activists, has been ongoing since 2013, these arrests seem to constitute a new wave.

“The number has gone up a lot recently. It might be because it’s the one year anniversary of [President Abdel-Fattah] el-Sisi being in power or because of the anniversary of the June 30 protests [in 2013 that were backed by the army and led to the removal of  Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood] coming up,” said Mohamed Nagy a researcher with the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression who tracks the detentions of students.

El-Taweel is a 23-year-old photojournalist. She walks with a cane or uses a wheelchair since she was shot and permanently injured as she covered the protests on the anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution in January 2014.  She disappeared on June 1 along with Saad, a 22-year-old political science student and a defendant in the Al Jazeera trial who was released from jail in February pending a retrial, and Mohamed, an engineering student who also makes short films. Their families fear they have been kidnapped by security forces.

“Really, I don’t know what kind of danger a handicapped young girl could make…she is not a political activist but only an amateur photographer,” El-Taweel's father, Mahfouz, wrote on a Facebook page called “Where is Esraa el-Taweel?”  set up to find answers about his daughter's whereabouts.

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