Human Rights Defender and researcher, Amr Salah was kidnapped in front of his home at approximately 4 am on Thursday, September 9, 2010. Neither his relatives, nor his colleagues at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), have any information about his whereabouts.
An eyewitness has told CIHRS that four men in civilian clothes got out of a white jeep with blackened windows and stopped Mr. Salah as he was returning home at 4 am. They were seen beating and handcuffing him before putting him in the vehicle. The men identified themselves to the eyewitness as members of Egyptian security. Thus far, no information has been given by the government on where Mr. Salah is being detained or the identity of those who abducted him, raising fears of possible torture or maltreatment. The Egyptian licensing and registration department for vehicles at the Interior Ministry allows only certain categories of security forces to blacken the glass on their vehicles.
The incident is especially worrying because other Egyptian activists have been forcibly disappeared in the past under similar circumstances, and despite the passage of several years, the Egyptian government has yet to announce the findings of investigations conducted or the bodies responsible for these abductions. CIHRS notes in particular the abduction of journalist and political activist Abd al-Halim Qandil in 2004 from in front of his home. Mr. Qandil was physically assaulted, stripped naked, and left in the middle of the desert. In another similar incident, journalist Reda Hilal was abducted nearly seven years ago. His family still has no information about his fate. It is suspected that he was executed and his body disposed.
CIHRS calls on the Egyptian authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Amr Salah and the reasons for his detention, as well as to allow his attorney to contact him and establish safeguards to prevent his torture or maltreatment. CIHRS urges the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to send urgent enquiries to the Egyptian government concerning Amr Salah, and for all relevant UN human rights bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, to demand that the Egyptian government reveal the whereabouts of Mr. Salah and ensure the prevention of any threat to his life or well-being.
Share this Post