Joint Statements

The undersigned rights organizations renew their demand for the immediate release of rights lawyer Ibrahim Metwally, the founder and chair of the League for the Families of the Disappeared. Metwally appeared before the prosecution – for the fifth time - on Monday December 4. His detention was renewed for a period of 15 days, pending investigation in Case No. 900 of 2017 to restrict the investigation of state security. For a second time, Metwally attested to his poor detention conditions at Aqrab Prison, where he is deprived…

Re: Call for action to condemn the Egyptian authorities’ crackdown on freedom of expression

The undersigned organizations demand the immediate release of Ibrahim Abd al-Moneim Metwally, age 53. Metwally is a lawyer who helped found the League for the “Families of the Disappeared” while searching for his son Amr, who was disappeared four years ago. Metwally appeared in front of the State Security Prosecution yesterday, which ordered a renewal of his arbitrary detention order for another 15 days. Metwally was arrested at the Cairo airport on September 10 as he was on his way to Geneva to participate in the annual…

The undersigned human rights organizations call for the immediate release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a pro-democracy activist who is appealing his five-year prison sentence on Thursday, October 19th at the Court of Cassation. Following a trial replete with legal violations while devoid of due process guarantees, Alaa was sentenced using the colonial-era Assembly Law (no. 10/1914), unanimously repealed by the Egyptian Parliament 89 years ago. The continued enforcement of the Assembly Law to imprison Alaa and thousands of others…

On the 15th World Day Against the Death Penalty, eight Egyptian rights groups demanded that the Egyptian adhere to the safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty and sign and ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims to abolish the death penalty. Last year, the same groups demanded the government to suspend the implementation of the death penalty, at least temporarily, “given the recent record of human rights abuses,…