Lawyers for Lawyers expresses concerns over the alleged enforced disappearance of Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Kassem since February 2024. According to the information received by Lawyers for Lawyers, Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Kassem was abducted from his home in Alexandria in August 2023 and held incommunicado until January 2024, when he was released to a hospital due to severe dehydration. While hospitalised, Mr. Kassem disclosed having been held inconspicuously for the past 5 months in a homeland security prison, where he was tortured, denied an arrest warrant, and deprived of a trial. During his detention, Mr. Kassem was allegedly denied access to legal representation and contact with his family. Lawyers for Lawyers has been informed that three weeks after his release, Mr. Kassem was forcibly disappeared again and remains unaccounted for. Such violence against Mr. Kassem may amount to enforced disappearance and torture. It is believed that Mr. Kassem has been targeted because of his work defending political opponents to the regime.
The alleged enforced disappearance of Mr. Kassem is indicative of a broader pattern employed by Egyptian authorities to silence political opponents and their legal representatives. Since 2020, Egypt has received more communications from the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances than any other nation.1 Lawyers for Lawyers has previously reported similar cases to that of Mr. Kassem, including those of Islam Salama, Ibrahim Metwally, Makarios Lahzy, and Youssef Mansour, all of whom lawyers who were forcibly disappeared. In 2021, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders already raised concerns over the continued and widespread use of arrests and incommunicado holdings by Egyptian authorities against political opponents, and lawyers.2
Lawyers for Lawyers draws attention to UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2003/32 where it reminded all states that incommunicado detention, whilst conducive to torture, also constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, amounting to torture in certain cases.
[…]
