The cases in which the convicted Egyptians were sentenced are politically motivated masked as criminal misconduct.
Kuwaiti authorities bear full legal responsibility for what the detainees are subjected to.
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) said that the fate of eight Egyptian detainees is unclear after Kuwaiti Assistant Foreign Minister announced their deportation from Kuwait to Egypt on July 15. Their relatives have not heard anything about them since their arrest in Kuwait on 10 and 11 July.
AOHR UK reported that Kuwaiti authorities kept the eight citizens in custody following their arrest at unknown locations and prevented them from any visits by their relatives or communication with lawyers. The authorities announced that they had investigated the subjects who confessed to committing terrorist crimes in Egypt. These narrations are absurd and indicate the possibility that the detainees were subjected to torture at their place of detention in Kuwait.
AOHR UK stressed that the families of the detainees have not yet received any official information from Egyptian or Kuwaiti authorities about the fate of the detainees and whether or not they were deported to Egypt. Kuwaiti authorities refuse to allow the detainees’ families to take a look at the detention papers, and they have not been presented before any Egyptian judicial body. Thus, the detainees are currently considered as forcibly disappeared.
AOHR UK pointed out that the cases in which the convictions were issued against these Egyptians are politically motivated masked as criminal misconduct, and that the charges were made while the defendants were outside Egypt. None of the charges relied on any material evidence indicting these persons in any crime.
AOHR UK condemned the insistence of Kuwaiti authorities for its security cooperation with the Egyptian regime, and its violation of international law and relevant resolutions to which it is signatory, as well as its failure to enforce the law by referring the detainees to a competent court to determine the legality of their residence and investigate the truth behind their convictions before defaming them and announcing their intention to extradite them to a system of torture and murder.
AOHR UK holds the Kuwaiti authorities responsible for the enforced disappearance of the Egyptian citizens, for they know full well that the Egyptian judiciary is in a state of ruin and they know what faces anyone with opposing views to the regime once they are extradited to Egypt.
AOHR UK called on the Egyptian and Kuwaiti authorities to reveal the fate of the eight Egyptian detainees, present them before a competent judicial authority, and to immediately allow them to communicate with their families and lawyers.
