PALAIS DES NATIONS • 1211 GENEVA 10, SWITZERLAND Mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances Ref.: AL EGY 10/2022 (Please use this reference in your reply) 11 November 2022 Excellency, We have the honour to address you in our capacities as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 43/16, 42/22 and 45/3. In this connection, we would like to bring to the attention of your Excellency’s Government information we have received concerning the repeated enforced disappearance, torture and ill treatment, and medical negligence, of human rights defender, Dr. Ahmed Shawky Abdelsattar Mohamed Amasha. Dr. Ahmed Shawky Abdelsattar Mohamed Amasha is an Egyptian human rights defender, and an environment rights defender. He has campaigned for and supported families of victims of enforced disappearance in Egypt through the League for Families of the Disappeared, a non-governmental organization that he co-founded and which provides legal advice and awareness raising. He is a veterinary physician by profession and a former head of the veterinarian syndicate. Dr. Amasha was previously arrested in March 2017 and conditionally released without trial in October 2019. Dr. Amasha was the subject of a previous communication (UA EGY 5/2017), dated 3 Mary 2017, sent to your Excellency’s Government concerning the abduction, enforced disappearance, detention, torture and ill-treatment of Dr. Amasha, reportedly in retaliation for his activities as a human rights defender, which included documenting cases of enforced disappearances for the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. We regret that no response to this communication has been received to date. Dr. Amasha was also the subject of Opinion No. 78/2017, regarding his arrest on 10 March 2017, in which the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found his detention to be arbitrary. The Working Group called on your Excellency’s Government to release Dr. Amasha and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law. The Working Group also requested your Excellency’s Government to provide information on action taken in follow-up to the recommendations made in its Opinion. We regret that no such information was received. According to the information received: On 17 June 2020, Dr. Amasha was arrested for a second time from his home in the Cairo suburb of Helwan and forcibly disappeared for a second time. His lawyer and family members filed complaints with the Prosecutor General and the Minister of Interior to report his arrest and enforced disappearance but his whereabouts were not disclosed for over 25 days.