September 12, 2017
More than a dozen rights organizations including Ikshef issued a joint statement condemning the arrest and detention of Ibrahim Abdul-Moneim Metwally, the lawyer and coordinator and co-founder of the Association of Families of the Involuntarily Disappeared.
The organizations called on Egyptian authorities to clarify Metwally’s fate and release him immediately and unconditionally, as he is still forcibly disappeared so far, for no reason other than to punish him for defending the forcibly disappeared and searching for his son who has been forcibly disappeared since July 2013.
The Egyptian authorities arrested Metwally while traveling from Cairo International Airport on Egypt Flight No. MS 771 to Geneva, Switzerland, at the invitation of the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances at the United Nations to attend the proceedings of its 113th Session held on 11-15 September 2017 within the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Beside demanding Metwally immediate and unconditional release, the organizations demanded that the Egyptian authorities release immediately and unconditionally activist Hanan Badruddin and drop all charges against her, since she is imprisoned for her work in the defense of human rights. This is beside informing Metwally and Badreddine of the fate and whereabouts of their relatives, as well as informing the families of the victims of enforced disappearance of the fate and whereabouts of their relatives.
