Punish those who deported Egyptians, Amnesty tells Putrajaya

Detainees in a soundproof glass dock at a courtroom in Egypt during the trial of 700 people. Amnesty International says its research has found that people in Egypt are at great risk of torture if they seem to have disappeared after arrest. (AFP pic)

PETALING JAYA: Amnesty International has urged authorities to take punitive action against the officials who decided early last month to deport six Egyptians, four of whom are said to have disappeared after they arrived in their home country.

Housein Baoumi, Amnesty’s researcher for Egypt, said Putrajaya, if it had any concern for human rights, should carry out an investigation to uncover the identities of those involved in the decision and make them account for it.

In an email to FMT, he repeated expressions of concern made in several quarters that the men were at risk of being tortured by Egyptian authorities and then subjected to unfair trials ending in the death sentence.

The four are Abdallah Mahmoud Hisham, Abdelrahman Abdelaziz Ahmed, Azmy al-Sayed Mohamed and Mohamed Fathy Eid.

Egyptian authorities have not confirmed their arrival in Cairo, but Baoumi said they were not likely to make such an announcement in any case.

“The authorities responded to inquiries by family members and lawyers by denying knowledge about them,” he said.

He said most Egyptians were unaware of their disappearance because of heavy restrictions imposed on the country’s media.

He said Amnesty had found from its research on Egypt that people were at great risk of torture if they seemed to have disappeared after being arrested.

Amnesty has documented a variety of torture techniques used in Egypt to extract confessions that would be used in court as proof of guilt.

Baoumi said forced disappearances were common in Egypt and he cited the case of agricultural engineer Mohamed Abdelhafez, who was sentenced to death in absentia in 2017 and deported from Turkey last January.

He was taken to a Cairo court in early March and was said to have looked like someone who had undergone torture. A lawyer told his family he was unable to hear or see properly.

According to Baoumi, Abdelhafez told the court, “I will admit to whatever you want me to admit to.”

The deportation from Malaysia has been heavily criticised by local and international rights groups as well as PKR president Anwar Ibrahim.

Inspector-General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun has defended the move, saying the deportees, believed to members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood party, were a threat to Malaysia’s security.

Jodie Harris, the wife of Abdallah Mahmoud Hisham, told FMT recently that she had not received any news of the deportees’ whereabouts and that Malaysian authorities would not release any information.

“We just hope that Malaysia will ask Egypt where they are and ask for their release,” she added. - FMT