This month, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) submitted a petition to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) on behalf of Ahmed Amasha, an Egyptian veterinarian, environmentalist, and human rights activist. Amasha has been arbitrarily detained for more than three years without having been convicted of any crime. Amasha’s detention results from his work highlighting torture, detention conditions, and enforced disappearances in Egypt, as well as the lack of freedom of speech.
In 2020, Amasha was arrested at his home in Cairo without an arrest warrant and without being informed of the reason for his arrest. He was interrogated about his human rights work and blindfolded, stripped naked, electrocuted, beaten, handcuffed, and hung from his hands — torture that resulted in broken ribs. Following his arrest, he was forcibly disappeared for 26 days and held incommunicado for nearly three years, without medical care.
“Ahmed Amasha’s case is an emblematic example of Egypt’s use of arbitrary detention to target individuals for their activism. It mirrors the experiences of countless others who have faced similar treatment at the hands of Egyptian officials,” HRF Chief Advocacy Officer Roberto González said. “Egypt’s use of arbitrary detention as a tool to silence dissent and suppress opposition is an alarming example of the regime’s disregard for the rule of law and basic human rights. Urgent international intervention is needed to secure his release after enduring over three years of detention on trumped-up charges, including torture and inhumane prison conditions.”
Amasha is a member of the Coordination Committee of the Kefaya opposition movement, also known as the Egyptian Movement for Change, and is known for campaigning against the Agrium petrochemical factory in his hometown of Damietta. He also founded the League of the Families of the Disappeared, which raises awareness of enforced or involuntary disappearances and provides domestic and international legal assistance to victims’ relatives.
Amasha was charged with crimes of terrorism in August 2022 and sent to one of the most dreaded prisons in Egypt: Tora high-security prison, also known as Scorpion 2. Amasha was denied gallbladder surgery, an adequate amount of food, and sunlight for an extended period of time and has been held in a cell with 24-hour video surveillance.
Today, Amasha remains in prison, in deteriorating physical and psychological health, and without information regarding when the court will issue its decision. He has been denied any form of due process, including not being brought promptly before a judge to rule on his detention and being denied proper access to an attorney.
HRF calls on the UNWGAD to investigate Amasha’s case, determine that his detention is arbitrary and in violation of international law, and request that Egypt release him immediately.
Supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.