Alkarama has just been officially informed of Opinion No° 27/2008 rendered during the last session of the UN Working Group of Arbitrary Detention concerning the detention of 26 leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Alkarama for Human Rights has been following events in the Ghazza strip closely from the beginning of the current crisis to try to establish a factual assessment, via our sources, of what is happening on the ground. We are deeply saddened at the ongoing violence in the occupied territory. It fully backs the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General's calls for an immediate halt to all violence by all parties to the conflict, in order to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the civilian population.

Alkarama submitted on 6 January 2009 a letter to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and to the Special Rapporteur on Torture to confirm Mr Adel Saker's arrest by agents of the state, and to ask them to urgently contact the Algerian authorities.

As announced following our meeting in November 2008 with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Alkarama submitted a list of 175 cases of enforced disappearances which took place during the period from 1993 to 1996 in the Jijel region (300 km to the east of Algiers) to the Working Group.

Alkarama submitted an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on Torture on 22 December 2008 to ask him to intervene in the case of Dr Saud b. Mubarek b. Zair, a campaigner for constitutional reforms, detained incommunicado since his arrest on 6 June 2007 (see press release).