The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemns the detention of Lobna Darwish, the director of EIPR's women's rights and gender programme, and at least 18 others, most of them feminist activists, for their participation in a peaceful women’s protest that took place outside the regional headquarters of UN Women in Cairo’s Maadi, on Tuesday, 23 April.

The protest was staged in solidarity with women in Palestine and Sudan and demanded an end to the war of annihilation in Gaza that has been ongoing for 200 days at the time of the protest.

EIPR calls for the immediate release of the detained protesters and the cessation of the crackdown on pro-Palestine protests, which has not stopped since last October. EIPR also calls on the Public Prosecutor to hold the security services accountable for their violations against citizens for exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression, assembly and protest. These violations included arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detentions while denying detainees access to their lawyers or families.

Eyewitnesses said the security forces attached to the UN Women headquarters in Cairo assaulted the activists who participated in yesterday's protest at around 2pm local time. Contact with the detained group was lost at 3:15pm after they were forced into security vehicles and had their phones switched off.

Among those detained were Ragia Omran, lawyer and president of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE); human rights lawyer Mahienour el-Masry; Asmaa Naim, lawyer at the Memory and Knowledge Center for Studies; and journalists Rasha Azab, Eman Auf, Hadeer el Mahdawi, Youssef Shaaban, Mohamed Farag, Farida el-Hefny, Mai el-Mahdy, Yousra al-Kalisli, Arwa Marei, Esraa Youssef, Lina Ali, Roqaya Serageldin, Yara el-Wardani, and Omar Hossam. 

EIPR said the total number of detainees may exceed the eighteen names documented so far. The Maadi police station had denied that any of these names were in their custody. On the afternoon of the 24th of April, Yara El Wardani and Omar Hossam were released from detention without charges. The remaining detainees started arriving at the Supreme State Security Prosecution offices and, as of 3 pm Cairo time,  lawyers are waiting for the prosecutors to begin the investigation.

EIPR said that this wave of arbitrary arrests is the latest of a series of arrests of pro-Palestine Egyptians. At least 56 others from Cairo and Alexandria – listed below – have been detained since last October for their participation in protests against the Gaza war. They have been detained in connection with Cases No. 2468, 2469, 2526 and 2635 of 2023 (Supreme State Security).

1. Omar Mohamed Mohamed Al-Dahmah 

2. Mohamed Ibrahim Abdel-Fattah Selim

3. Omar Khaled Ragab Mahmoud Ghazi

4. Moaz Mohamed Alsayed Abdel-Aal 

5. Omar Ahmed Ibrahim Mustafa

6. Hefzy Khaled Hefzy Salem

7. Ahmed el-Sayed Abdel-Moneim Mohamed

8. Mohamed Ali Saleh Mohamed

9. Zain El-Abidine Thabet Zain El-Abidine el-Saeed

10. Ahmed el-Sayed Mohamed Abdel-Salam

11. Youssef Ahmed Mohamed Zaki 

12. Saad Hassan Awad Dweik 

13. Yahya Ayyad Mabrouk Hamad 

14. Gibril Awad Abdel-Aziz Madkour

15. Abdulrahman Emad Abdel-Aziz Saeed

16. Islam Mamdouh Khallaf Khaled

17. Hossam Aldin Sayed Ismail

18. Shukri Manna Abdel-Hafiz Abdel-Ati

19. Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed Ahmed

20. Amr Reda Ibrahim Attiya

21. Ahmed Sayed al-Saeed Abdo 

22. Ahmed Hanafi Abu Zeid Abdel-Rahim

23. Murad Musaad Hassan el-Sayed

24. Ahmed Fahmy Moussa al-Rawi

25. Mohamed Mohamed Ilhami Anis Fouda 

26. Omar Essam Kamel Abdel-Nabi

27. Abdullah Hussein Musaad Zaghloul

28. Tayyem Karim Mohamed Abdel-Hamid el-Sayed 

29. Ali Adel Abdel-Moneim

30. Karim Ahmed Orabi

31. Aref Arabi Aref Abdel-Radi

32. Mohamed Khamis Mohamed Khamis

33. Abdullah Ibrahim Musaad Abu al-Rus

34. Abdulrahman Hassan Abdel-Nabi Abu Bakr

35. Aladdin Ali Kamel Shaker

36. Abdel-Samad Rabee Abdulrahman Mansour

37. Ahmed Abdel-Hamid Abdel-Qawi Atta al-Kareem

38. Ahmed Hani Omar Mohamed Anbar 

39. Mukhtar Ashour Sayed Amer 

40. Bashir Mustafa Youssef Suleiman 

41. Mustafa Essam Ibrahim Mohamed 

42. Abd Rab Alnabi Mustafa Ali

43. Sami el-Gendy

44. Bishoy Tawfiq Saad

45. Younis Islam Abdel-Aziz Zidan

46. Ahmed Abu Steit

47. Ali Mohamed Ali Abu al-Magd

48. Mudassir Mohamed Abdel-Hamid

49. Ahmed Abu al-Azm 

50. Mario Abdel-Massih

51. Sami Abdel-Gawad

52. Hassan Shawky Abdo Ahmed

53. Mahmoud Shawky Abdo Ahmed

54. Youssef Hamdino Abdel-Fattah Abdel-Azim al.-Shahawi

55. Karim al-Shaer 

56. Khaled Mohamed Abdel-Sadiq