ENHR documents forced disappearance and torture of vet, Dr Ahmed Amasha

The Egyptian Network for Human Rights has documented the forced disappearance and incarceration of Kefaya member, Dr. Ahmed Amasha.

Dr. Amasha, who is also a trade unionist and former head of the veterinary union, was forcibly disappeared on 10 March 2017 for 21 days.

Dr Amasha was part of an international campaign urging Egyptian authorities to close Scorpion Prison, where inmates are systematically tortured.

He also co-founded the League for the Families of the Disappeared which provides legal support to families of the forcibly disappeared.

The Cairo Criminal Court ordered that he be released on precautionary measures in September 2019 after he had spent more than two years on pretrial detention, however, Dr. Amasha appealed against being released for fear he would simply be rearrested again and tortured again.

“I ask the court not to release me,” he said to Judge Shaaban Al-Shami, “for fear of the subsequent enforced disappearance and new charges being brought against me.”

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“Ibrahim Hassan was in a cell next to me and despite his release he disappeared, and his family found his corpse. His position would have been better in detention because at least his whereabouts would be known.”

Dr Amasha was released in October 2019 and as he feared, arrested again in June 2020. He was forcibly disappeared for 25 days and taken to Scorpion Prison where he was held incommunicado.

“The situation here is worse than one can imagine on all levels,” he said after spending two years inside a cell which was four and a half square metres, and was tortured, both physically and psychologically until one of his ribs broke.

He was prohibited from receiving visitors, exercising, meeting his lawyer, going outside, reading books, or going to the doctors even after security officers broke his rib.

What Dr Amasha suffered is what thousands of other human rights defenders are suffering inside Egypt’s prison system to silence them, says the ENHR.

“The Egyptian Network considers that violations, systematic torture, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearance, and what happened to Dr Ahmed Amasha and other political detainees are crimes against humanity and cannot be subject to a statute of limitations,” the group said in a statement on Facebook.