العربية
EGYPT: 74 NGOS URGE EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES TO RELEASE RESEARCHER AHMED SAMIR SANTAWY
We, the
undersigned 74 organizations, call upon the Egyptian authorities to immediately
and unconditionally release 29-year-old student and researcher Ahmed Samir
Santawy, who has been arbitrarily detained since 1 February 2021 on bogus
terrorism-related charges. The undersigned organizations further call on the
authorities to ensure prompt, independent, impartial, transparent, and
effective investigations into Ahmed Samir Santawy’s allegations of being
subjected to enforced disappearance and ill-treatment by security forces
following his arrest.
The
undersigned organizations consider that Ahmed Samir Santawy, a researcher and
master’s student of anthropology at the Vienna-based Central European
University (CEU), is arbitrarily detained solely because of his academic work
focusing on women’s rights, including the history of reproductive rights in
Egypt.
On 23
January 2021, seven masked and armed policemen raided Ahmed Samir Santawy’s
family home when he was not there, and instructed for Ahmed Samir Santawy to
present himself to the National Security Agency (NSA), a specialized police
force, without providing any reasons. When he did as instructed on 1 February,
security forces arrested him and subjected him to an enforced disappearance
until 6 February. He said that during this period NSA officials beat him,
including by slapping him on the face and punching him in the stomach, while
handcuffed and blindfolded, at the Fifth Settlement Police Station.
On 6
February 2021, Ahmed Samir Santawy was brought for questioning before the
Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP)[1],
a special branch of the Public Prosecution responsible for prosecuting crimes
that relate to “state security”. The prosecutor accused Ahmed Samir Santawy of
“membership in a terrorist group,” “spreading false news,” and “using a social
media account to spread false news” in Supreme State Security case no.65/2021.
On 23 February, at a separate hearing, another prosecutor said he was also
being investigated for “funding a terrorist organization”. The prosecutors
based their accusations upon a NSA investigations file, which neither Ahmed
Samir Santawy nor his lawyers were permitted to examine, as well as social
media posts he denied authoring.
The
prosecutors questioned Ahmed Samir Santawy about his academic work and studies,
including his work on Islam and abortion, and about anti-government posts from
a Facebook account that he denied authoring. Ahmed Samir Santawy told the SSSP
that during his initial detention, NSA officers also questioned him about his
research work and involvement in a Facebook page critical of the authorities,
which he denied as well. Ahmed Samir Santawy further told the SSSP during a hearing
on 23 February that he has been held in solitary confinement, in a cold cell
without access to adequate clothing and bedding. The SSSP failed to order an
investigation into his allegations of being forcibly disappeared and beaten by
the NSA, and did not respond to requests by Ahmed Samir Santawy’s lawyers to
refer him to the Forensic Medical Authority for examination.
Ahmed
Samir Santawy was moved out of solitary confinement and is now held in
pre-trial detention at Liman Tora Prison.. His pre-trial detention was renewed
in his and his lawyers’ absence four times, denying him the right to challenge
the legality of his detention.
The
undersigned organizations call on the Egyptian authorities to ensure that,
pending his release, Ahmed Samir Santawy is granted immediate and regular
access to his family and lawyers, provided with adequate healthcare, and
protected from torture and other ill-treatment.
Background:
Ahmed
Samir Santawy’s arrest comes against the backdrop of an unprecedented crackdown
on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in
Egypt. In recent years, security forces have rounded up hundreds of human
rights defenders, activists, lawyers, politicians, peaceful protesters,
journalists, medical workers, as well as researchers and academics, and
subjected them to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and
prolonged pre-trial detention pending investigations into unfounded
terrorism-related charges.[2] In
February 2020, security forces arrested Patrick George Zaki, a gender rights
researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and master’s student
at the University of Bologna in Italy, upon his arrival to Egypt. He has been
held in pre-trial detention over baseless terrorism-related charges since then.[3] In
May 2018, Walid Salem, a PhD researcher at the University of Washington was
arrested after returning to Egypt for his field work. Walid Salem was
provisionally released pending investigations in December 2018, after spending
seven months in pre-trial detention, but the authorities ban him from
travelling outside Egypt. These attacks against academics and researchers
further undermine the already limited academic freedom in the country.[4]
Signatories:
·
Amnesty International
·
Human Rights Watch
·
Scholars at Risk
·
Association for Freedom
of Thought and Expression
·
Cairo Institute for Human
Rights Studies
·
EuroMed Rights
·
FIDH, within the
framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
·
OMCT (World Organisation
Against Torture), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection
of Human Rights Defenders
·
International Service for
Human Rights
·
Egyptian Front for Human
Rights
·
Initiative
franco-égyptienne pour les droits les libertés
·
Committee for Justice
·
The Freedom Initiative
·
Project on Middle East
Democracy (POMED)
·
The Tahrir Institute for
Middle East Policy
·
People In Need
·
MENA Rights Group
·
Middle East Studies
Association of North America
·
PEN International
·
Center for Reproductive
Rights
·
Pan African Human Rights
Defenders Network (AfricanDefenders)
·
Intersection Association
for Rights and Freedoms
·
Regional Center for
Rights and Liberties
·
Human Rights First
·
Hungarian Europe Society
·
Clean Air Action Group
(Environmental Association)
·
Democracy for the Arab
World Now (DAWN)
·
El Nadim Center
·
Ankh (Arab Network for
Knowledge about Human Rights)
·
Cairo 52 Legal Research
Institute
·
HuMENA for Human Rights
and Civic Engagement (HUMENA Regional)
·
Háttér Society
·
Americans for Democracy
& Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
·
Ökotárs – Hungarian
Environmental Partnership Foundation
·
Kenya Human Rights
Commission
·
Сenter for Civil
Liberties
·
humanrights.ch
·
Tunisian Human Rights
League
·
CIVICUS
·
Comité de Vigilance pour
la Démocratie en Tunisie – Belgique
·
Mwatana for Human Rights
·
Egyptian Human Rights
Forum
·
Tunisian Association for
the Defense of Individual Freedoms
·
CALAM
·
DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION AND
HUMAN Rights Support Center “DAAM”
·
Tunisian Coalition
Against the Death Penalty
·
Association of Tunisian
Women for Research and Development-AFTUDR
·
Nachaz Association
·
Utcáról Lakásba!
Egyesület
·
Vigilance for Democracy
and the Civic State
·
Comisiones Obreras
·
Hungarian Civil Liberties
Union
·
Réseau des Organisations
de la Société Civile pour l’Observation et le Suivi des Élections en Guinée
(ROSE)
·
Tunisian Association of
the Democratic Women (ATFD)
·
Tunisian Forum for
Economic and Social Rights (FTDES)
·
Organisation du martyr de
la liberté Nabil Barkati : Mémoire et fidelité
·
MEDITERRANEAN CITIZENS’
ASSEMBLY FOUNDATION (FACM)
·
Syrian Center for Media
and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
·
CEAR PV
· Syndicat National des Journalistes
Tunisiens-SNJT
·
Aufstehn
·
Caminando Fronteras
·
Reprieve
·
Robert F Kennedy Human
Rights
·
ARCI
· Reporter ohne Grenzen Österreich (RSF)
·
ICID (Iniciativas de
Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo)
·
Österreichische Liga für
Menschenrechte
·
Kvinna till Kvinna
·
Ludwig Boltzmann
Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights
· ZARA (Zivilcourage und
Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit)
·
European Training and
Research Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (ETC Graz) – Host of the
International Centre for the Promotion of Human Rights at the Local and
Regional Levels under the auspices of UNESCO
·
Epicenter.works – for
digital rights
·
Südwind
[1] Amnesty International, Egypt: State
Security prosecution operating as a ‘sinister tool of repression’ (Press
release, 27 November 2019), www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/egypt-state-security-prosecution-operating-as-a-sinister-tool-of-repression/
[2]Amnesty International, Egypt:
Permanent state of exception: Abuses by the supreme state security prosecution (Index:
MDE 12/1399/2019), www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde12/1399/2019/en/
[3]Amnesty International, Egypt:
Arbitrary arrest and torture of researcher studying gender in Italy (Press
release, 10 February 2020), www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/egypt-arbitrary-arrest-and-torture-of-researcher-studying-gender-in-italy/
[4] Association for Freedom of Thought and
Expression, Universities Without Academic Freedoms: A Report On Freedom
Of Teaching And Research In Egyptian Universities, 27 July 2020, https://afteegypt.org/en/academic_freedoms/2020/07/27/19745-afteegypt.html