Tortured and held without charge
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) wishes to highlight and condemn the appalling treatment suffered by Egyptian journalist Bahaa al-Din Ibrahim at the hands of the Egyptian regime as yet another example of Al-Sisi’s systematic repression of journalists.
Bahaa al-Din Ibrahim Na‘mat Allah is 43 years old. Bahaa al-Din has previously worked as producer with “Al-Jazeera Mubashir”, and a translator for Associated Press’ Cairo Office. He is a member of the International Press Institute, and a member of the Egyptian Union of Journalists.
He is married, and the father of two young children.
In December 2018 Bahaa al-Din travelled to Egypt from Doha, Qatar, for a one-week holiday. However, on attempting to return to Doha from Cairo International Airport, Bahaa al-Din’s passport was taken, and he was put on a flight-ban, with no reason given. He was told to retrieve his passport from the National Security Headquarters.
However, several attempts at retrieving it proved fruitless. He was given a new passport in March 2019 – yet even then, Bahaa al-Din was prevented from leaving Egypt.
With his new passport, Bahaa al-Din attempted to leave Egypt for a third time on 22 February 2020 – over two years since his first encounter with authorities – at which point he was disappeared by one or more state services.
Bahaa al-Din re-appeared, almost three months later, on 6 May 2020 as a defendant to a Supreme State Security prosecution. His family were not informed of his whereabouts over that entire period.
Bahaa al-Din claims that during his forced disappearance he was tortured with electricity. Whilst he was held incommunicado, he was kept continuously blindfolded and handcuffed – for a full 75 days.
Bahaa al-Din remains detained, without either a stated charge or trial date. He has not once seen a judge. His case is strikingly similar to that of another Egyptian Al Jazeera journalist, Hisham Abdel Aziz Gharib.
AOHR UK condemns such grievous violations of Bahaa al-Din’s individual rights – rights to travel, to a fair trial, and to minimal standards of treatment as prisoner – and views them as part of the regime’s deplorable record of massive human rights abuses. We demand his immediate release.
