At the seventh anniversary of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) calls on the Egyptian government to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (the international convention on enforced disappearances), to open an investigation into complaints of family members of the disappeared, to prevent enforced disappearances, and to combat impunity for the crime of enforced disappearance.
Files: Forced Disappearance
The signatories condemn all violations of the rights of the defense, and the defendants' right to a fair trial, as stipulated in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The forced disappearance of the defendants contravenes article 40 of Egypt’s Penal Code, which stipulates that, “No one shall be arrested or imprisoned except by an order of the competent authorities, and shall be treated in a manner that protects human dignity and may not be harmed physically or morally.”
EIPR reasserts that the increasing use of death sentences by the Egyptian state as a form of punishment in cases of terrorism or cases labeled as ‘political,’ following trials that do not meet the standards of a fair trial, is far from being a seemingly efficient method of facing violence.
