The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) launched a campaign on Sunday demanding authorities reveal the fate of more than 410 forcibly disappeared individuals, marking the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
The rights group said in a statement that its “Stolen Time” campaign highlights cases of individuals subjected to enforced disappearance, specifically focusing on those held secretively for periods ranging from six months to over 10 years.
Since beginning its monitoring work in 2015, the ECRF has documented 5,150 individuals subjected to enforced disappearance. While 4,414 of those individuals subsequently resurfaced, at least 410 remain missing.
It has further recorded 222 individuals who have been missing for between five and 10 years, while 151 others have been forcibly disappeared for over a decade.
The organization added that 403 individuals have been missing for more than six months. Among them, four were disappeared for six months to a year, four for 1–2 years, and 22 for 2–5 years.
The commission urged the public to participate in the campaign throughout the coming month by signing a petition, sending messages to the disappeared and their families, or sharing their stories.
The campaign comes as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) on Thursday urged Prosecutor General Counselor Mohamed Shawky to exercise his legal authority and launch an immediate investigation into the whereabouts of Abdullah Ramadan, a young man held without legal grounds despite a final court ruling ordering his release on Sunday, Aug. 9.
EIPR said Ramadan remained detained in Port Said for 10 days before authorities transferred him to the police station in Zagazig, Sharqiya his place of residence, to process his release. He remained in custody there until EIPR’s defense attorney discovered he had been taken to an undisclosed location.
Security forces originally arrested Ramadan in 2015 on charges of “illegal assembly,” for which a military court sentenced him to two years in prison. After serving his sentence, he completed an additional three-year prison term following a conviction for possessing printed materials.
Rather than releasing him, authorities charged Ramadan in a third case before the Supreme State Security Prosecution, keeping him in pretrial detention for two years.
EIPR noted that prosecutors later questioned Ramadan in a fourth case. Although a Consultation Chamber judge ordered his release on Feb. 26, 2024, authorities kept him in detention and “rotated” him into a fifth case, accusing him of “joining a terrorist group” without presenting evidence or witnesses. The court subsequently ordered his release in that fifth case as well, though the order remains unexecuted.
In January 2025, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group of the UN Human Rights Council issued its report reviewing Egypt’s human rights record. The report included 343 recommendations from 137 countries, emphasizing the need to combat enforced disappearance, end the practice of “rotating” detainees into new cases, release political prisoners, and guarantee press freedom.
The United Nations defines the forcibly disappeared as “persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”
