On 16 August 2013, Hind and Rachaa, aged 37 and 33, were in their friend's car leaving Ramses' square where they had been peacefully demonstrating, when they were stopped by police officers in the neighbourhood of Alf Maskan in Eastern Cairo. After finding a picture of Mohamed Morsi in the car, the officers arrested all passengers and took them to the Al Quba police station in Alf Maskan.

Whilst they were secretly detained at the police station, the police officers severely beat the four passengers with truncheons, kicked them, hit them on their heads and burnt parts of their hands. The officers also threatened Hind and Rachaa with rape and sexually abused them. Held for seven days in the police station where they were subjected to additional acts of torture, the two sisters were forced to sign a confession before being transferred to Cairo's Al Qanater women prison, where they have been detained ever since.

Like dozens of others women detainees arrested for their alleged support to Mohamed Morsi, Hind and Rachaa were also tortured in Al Qanater prison, where an increasing number of human rights organisations have documented severe violations and acts of torture against detainees. This follows the trend that supporters of the ousted President, or alleged supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, are the main victims of torture, abuses and harassment. Following an unfair procedure, the two sisters were sentenced by the Cairo Criminal Court to life imprisonment on 6 August 2014.

Their arrest comes in the context of the extremely violent repression of the peaceful sit-ins that occurred following the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi by the military on 3 July 2013. As a reminder, the repression was particularly brutal in Cairo, on Rabiaa, Al Nahda and Ramses squares, where, from 14 to 16 August 2013, the Egyptian security services dispersed the demonstrators using excessive and violent methods, killing more than a thousand people and injuring thousands of others.

In its communication to the WGAD, Alkarama reminded the Working Group that the 2013 Law No.107 for organising the right to peaceful public meetings, processions and protests, on the basis of which the two victims were arrested, has already been strongly denounced by human rights organisations for severely undermining the right to peaceful assembly.

After expressing its concerns over the Nassr sisters' physical and mental integrity, as they are likely to be subjected to more acts of torture during their detention in Al Qanater prison, Alkarama asked the WGAD to intervene with the Egyptian authorities to ask them to release the two victims immediately as well as to fulfil their international obligations by putting an end to the practices of arbitrary detention and torture.

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