Egypt
During the 2011 revolution, 1,200 persons were reported missing.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International have reported a significant increase in enforced disappearances since the removal of Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Amnesty reported in 2021 that sweeping crackdown on the opposition has put at least 34,000 persons – by the government’s own admission – and possibly thousands more behind bars. In 2020 the Egyptian Commission for Human Rights said 2,723 people had been disappeared over a five-year period in Egypt inside the National Security headquarters and other official and unofficial detention facilities across the country.
In a statement to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance (WGEID), on 20 September 2022, the International Commission of Jurists noted that “It is nowadays common practice for people arbitrarily detained to be forcibly disappeared for days upon their arrest. Egypt’s failure to criminalize enforced disappearances in domestic legislation encourages perpetrators.” The ICJ called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent monitoring mechanism to promote accountability for gross human rights violations in Egypt.
Organizations that have addressed the issue of enforced disappearances include the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
