On his way to Cairo, Reda was arrested without any mandate by policemen in uniform or civilian clothes, just before a checkpoint on the agricultural road of Al Fashn administrative centre. He was reportedly brought to the Investigation centre of the Intelligence services of Al Fashn where he was questioned and brutalised before being taken to the police headquarters of Beni Suef where he was seen for the last time by other detainees.

Worried about his fate, his family undertook several steps to find him, including sending a letter to the General Prosecutor of Beni Suef and the head of the police of Al Fashn, but both attempts were unsuccessful. Moreover, when they went to the police headquarters, the police simply denied his abduction, which adds up to the several other cases of enforced disappearances reported in the last couple of months. Just in the last month for instance, Alkarama sent communications to the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearance about the enforced disappearance of seven women, of the General Secretary for the Justice and Freedom Party, and of a 20-year old student.

"Our foundation follows very closely all the cases of enforced disappearances that have reached unprecedented proportions in the last two months, and particularly in the academic world," says Alkarama's Egypt Country Representative, Ahmed Mefreh. "This has been made possible by the complicity of the military in power who protect the security services, as well as by the Public Prosecutor who close their eyes on violations committed by them," Mefreh explains, claiming that "to arrest and detain people incommunicado for three months or more has become systematic."

In light of the information provided above, Alkarama called on the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, chaired by Ariel Dulitzky, to urgently intervene with the Egyptian authorities, and ask that Reda be released immediately or, at the very least, that he be placed under the protection of the law. Alkarama is particularly worried at the increasing use of this practice which, although commonplace under Mubarak, had almost disappeared under the previous government, and which does not bode well for the human rights situation in Egypt.

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