URGENT ACTION

human rights activists’ whereabouts unknown

The whereabouts of Egyptian and international human rights activists, lawyers and journalists arrested during a raid on the Hisham Mubarak Law Center in Cairo on the afternoon of 3 February 2011 remains unknown. Amnesty International is concerned that all those detained may be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

Among more than 30 people arrested, those detained include: Said Haddadi, an Amnesty International researcher and a female staff member of the organization; Daniel Williams, a Human Rights Watch researcher; Ahmed Seif Al Islam, the former director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center; a French and a Portuguese journalist; and at least nine other lawyers associated with the Hisham Mubarak Law Center or volunteers from the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters. Amnesty International considers them to be prisoners of conscience.

Eye-witnesses outside the building where the detainees were arrested said they were taken away with a military escort.

Colleagues of the arrested Egyptian lawyers believe that the group is being detained by the military police at Camp 75, a military camp located in Manshiyet el-Bakri, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Cairo. When lawyers went to Camp 75 and requested access to their detained colleagues, the army officials refused to confirm that they had any of the missing in detention.

The Egyptian authorities have also not provided foreign embassies with any information about where the detainees are being kept, or provided a reason for their arrest.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English, Arabic or your own language:

• Calling on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release those detained on 3 February 2011 at the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC) and the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), as they are prisoners of conscience;

• Calling on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all others detained in relation to their peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly;

• Urging the Egyptian authorities to immediately disclose the whereabouts of those detained and to allow them immediate access to their family members, lawyers of their choice, and to ensure that they are protected from all forms of torture or other ill-treatment.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 18 MARCH 2011 TO: