Report on the incidents of arrest on a political background in Egypt

27 October، 2020

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This report covers a period of six months from January to June 2020. The monitoring methodology is based on counting the arrests on political grounds in Egypt, which are multiple and frequent cases under the current repressive political regime. The regime tends to obscure information concerning the incidents of arrest, but the activists of the Egyptian civil dedicate their work to ensure the right of the Egyptian citizen and the international community to access such information due to its sensitivity and importance in ensuring the rights of detainees and preventing violations as much as possible. It can be said that the violations of human rights in Egypt are systematic as a policy of the security and judicial institutions. The regime’s media also supports that policy with fallacies and rumors that try to cover up the violations and deny their existence.

The stop is defined in the Egyptian law as a procedure whereby a representative of a public authority has the right to arrest a person based on suspicion or specific legal cases. In this procedure, it is required that the person puts himself in suspicion. And in order to discover the legal situation of the stopped person, the security person has the right to investigate him.

And if there are no longer grounds for the Stop, thus it would be unjustified. It is considered the arrest which has no basis in the law, so it becomes null. The judiciary plays a pivotal role at this stage, as the judge shall ensure that the Stop is legal. Based on the foregoing, the violations which are mentioned in the report confirm the existence of a set of breaches, the first is the Stop of citizens due to political activity that falls within the right of citizens to express and participate in the public affairs. Moreover, the judiciary in its various levels of litigation hasn’t become a guarantee of the transparency of procedures, as it has become a security office to confirm the security policy that jails activists.

Based on the following detailed information, we could review the following telegraphic notes:

Despite trying to monitor the violations, the regime’s policy of blackout by targeting civil society activists and human rights defenders makes the relevant data doesn’t represent the actually violations, which means that the size of the repression is greater than it appears.
There are obstacles in following up the judicial files which prevents monitoring the legal status of a very large number of victims.
Violations occur at all levels of litigation, from arrest and investigation to trial
The dominance of state security cases and the central role of the State Security Prosecution in violations
The dominance of security raids which reflect the repressive nature of the regime's policy
Although the stops declined during the period of the quarantine and after the start of the anti-epidemic protocols, they exist in a relatively high number. And that puts victims at the risk of the disease in the overcrowded detention centers and prisons in Egypt. The continuity of the epidemic situation as it is and the absence of precautionary measures from the state made the Corona epidemic a weapon of the regime against activists.
The names of the accused persons are repeated in several cases as part of the policy of “revolving doors” which ensures the imprisonment of activists on fabricated and ready-made charges.
The number of victims of violations among women and children is rising

During the first half of 2020, 3,400 incidents of security or judicial action were documented against persons on a political background in all governorates of the Republic, except for the North Sinai governorate in 115 police stations, cities and subdivisions. The number is divided into 3306 cases of “arrest” and referral to the prosecution, 21 cases of “stop and then exclusion from the investigation report”, and 70 unknown cases. It should be noted that the numbers in the report don’t represent the total number of the arrested persons during a certain period in the same incidents. However, it is considered as a temporary incident that wouldn’t last. It is also noted that the incidents of arrest against persons who had default judgements, weren’t counted because it is a large file that lacks enough data. The report also didn’t include any cases in North Sinai Governorate, except those who were brought before the Supreme State Security Prosecution. Taking into consideration the repeated names of the arrested person who were accused and arrested several times, and they represent less than 5% of the total number. It should be noted that the numbers in the counting are based on the copied facts from certain sources in the following priority order: (official, human rights, media and family sources).

This counting consists of two main parts:

1.The informational part (facts): this part is concerning facts such as personal data of the arrested person as the name and age, etc... or the legal data as case no., the accusations and the judicial rulings, etc.…
2.The detailed data: this part is concerning the detailed data and classifications such as the background of the incident, the activity’s type in which the accused person is arrested for, the geographical region and the quarterly period of the year, etc.…

A specific display :

And it should be noted that this does not mean the total number of detainees pending investigations in any of these cases, but rather what could be reached only.

As for the background of the incident of arrest: 3362 cases of arrest were documented on political backgrounds and 38 cases of arrest on the background of sports’ incidents.
As for the time period of the incidents of arrest: 1680 cases of arrest were documented during the first quarter of the year, 1086 cases of arrest were documented during the second quarter, and 633 cases of arrest were documented as unspecified incidents.
As for governorates and geographical regions: The Delta governorates are considered as the most geographical region of incidents of arrest, with a rate of 1166 incidents. The Delta governorates are followed by the Coastal governorates, with 277 cases. Then the governorates of Greater Cairo with 128 cases of arrest, 39 cases for the Canal governorates, and 8 cases for Upper Egypt governorates. And the governorates of the cases of 1781 persons are unknown.
The total number of the arrested persons among females is 77, while the total number of the arrested persons among males is 3323.

Regarding age groups:

0-18: 38 minors were arrested.
19-30: 90 persons were arrested
31-40: 38 persons were arrested.
41-50: 32 persons were arrested
51-60: 47 persons were arrested.
Over 60: 9 persons were arrested
The ages of 3164 persons are unknown.

Regarding students, the arrest of 83 students were monitored, including:

Preparatory students

students in the Secondary school

university students (undergraduates)

Regarding jobs: Teachers are the most prominent and monitored group with 64 arrested teachers, then it is followed by: 38 engineers, 29 civil servants, 26 lawyers, 26 doctors and 20 journalists.