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.