Official says claims about enforced disappearance in Egypt fake

CAIRO - 5 September 2019: Mohsen Awad, a member of the National Council for Human Rights, denounced the claims of enforced disappearance cases as a chronic problem that lack verification, adding that some of these claims are fake and lack much information.

During the 13th annual forum for civil society organizations on Sept. 4, Awad said that some of the people who were reported missing, in fact, escaped to regions of armed conflicts.

Awad stressed the importance of implementing the recommendations of the United Nations Human Rights Council during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which is important to follow up on the states' commitment to international conventions related to human rights.

In May 2019, Egyptian Councilor Ehab Abdel Aaty, member of the delegation to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) in its 2019 edition, said the Egyptian state has taken many necessary measures to protect labor rights, ensure freedom of trade union activities, and ban dissolving trade unions without a verdict.

For his part, Councilor Hany George, head of the General Directorate of Human Rights in the Office of the Attorney General, stressed that the general prosecution is fully ready to check any allegations of enforced disappearance.

“We began investigating these allegations even without receiving reports. According to the Egyptian Constitution, no one may be subjected to enforced disappearance, not to mention that this is criminalized by the penal code,” George added. “The judicial system in Egypt cannot tolerate enforced disappearance.”

George also added that such allegations are untrue as most of them are the result of joining a terrorist group or illegal immigration.