• EGYPT
  • May 30, 2017
  • 5 minutes read

Sharqeya Detainees’ Families Association: 14 Defense Lawyers Arrested by Coup Forces

Sharqeya Detainees’ Families Association: 14 Defense Lawyers Arrested by Coup Forces

To the Director of Sharqeya Security Department and the Director of the National Security Apparatus…


We are Sharqeya Detainees’ Families Association (SDFA): the mothers, sisters and relatives of the detainees who have been arrested and are now languishing in your inhumanly brutal prisons. We call upon you to safeguard the right of our incarcerated loved ones as attempts are made to deprive them of defending their right to freedom by arresting and detaining members of their defense team.


Coup forces operating under your command violated all humanitarian, Egyptian and Islamic customs and also openly violated the constitution, which affirms the individual’s right to a defense body. Coup forces adopted an intensely aggressive approach of cruelty and abuse of detainees.


Coup authorities continued to arrest lawyers, members of the of Sharqeya detainees defense team. The latest crimes were reported yesterday when security forces broke into the office of Abdullah Ibrahim, a lawyer and a member of the detainees’ defense team, without legal warrant. Ibrahim was arrested and taken to an unknown destination Sunday afternoon.


The crime of arresting lawyer Abdullah Ibrahim is, in fact, part of a series of crimes where coup forces round up and detain lawyers in Sharqeya Province. Before the latest arrest case, human rights organizations had documented 13 crimes this year, with little or no response from the Bar Association and its president Sameh Ashour to defend them.


These coup forces’ crimes included the arrest of:


– Alsayed Mustafa, member of Sharqeya detainees defense – from a street in the town of Awlad Saqr on May 27

– Imam Alshafi’i, member of Sharqeya detainees defense – from his home in the town of Hehia on January 6, 2017

– Alsayed Sadiq Mehareb, lawyer, from his home in the town of Al-Salehia Al-Gadida on February 21, 2017

– Ahmed Abdel-Karim, lawyer, from his home in the town of Abu-Kabir in early March 2017

– Hafez Mahdi Hafez, from his home on March 15, 2017

– Osama Wahdan, from his home in the town of Abu-Kabir on March 30, 2017


• In April 2017, several members of Sharqeya detainees defense team, including Ahmed Al-Birmawi, from Minya Al-Qameh, were rounded up and detained, after being summoned by an officer while in court. This tactic was repeated on the same day with the lawyer Mohamed Abdel-Aziz as he left the Hehia Court. Khaled Shahwan joined the list of detainees on April 14, 2017.


Ahmed Gomaa Abd-AlBaqi was also arrested from the city of Abu-Kabir on April 16, 2017, after coup forces raided his house in Sawares district. Alaa Al-Awadhi was arrested from a village in Derb Nagm on April 19, 2017. Mohamed Ibrahim Mustafa, lawyer, was also arrested from his home in Kafr Saqr on April 28, 2017.


On May 1, 2017, Atef Abu-Taleb, member of the Abu-Hammad detainees’ defense team, was arrested from his home in the city and had his name added in a fabricated military case in an attempt to intimidate lawyers.


Sharqeya Detainees’ Families Association


Monday – May 29, 2017