In March 2016, human rights defenders Imad Amara and Faisal Al Tamimi were arrested and tortured due to their work documenting cases of enforced disappearances in Iraq. Both men were volunteers at the human rights NGO Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly, which documents cases of enforced disappearances and together with Alkarama, submits them to the United Nations Human Rights mechanisms.

In the early morning of 20 February 2016, about 12 members of the Intelligence Services of the Criminal Investigation Directorate in civilian clothes stormed the house of 17-year-old student Fadhel Abbas Ali Hassan Jayed. After searching his room, they arrested him and confiscated his phone. No warrant was shown and they did not provide any explanation for the arrest. Fadhel was then taken to the Criminal Investigation Directorate, where he was tortured with electric shocks, beaten, kicked and slapped on the face and head by masked men. Then he was forced to sign confessions stating that on 2 December 2015 and 14 February 2016, he participated in illegal gatherings and was in possession of Molotov cocktails.

Credit: Thomas Hawk/Flickr Egyptian Homeland Security raided Mohamed Mohamed Sadiq Ayyad’s house and arrested him on 13 January 2016. Secretly detained for weeks, he was repeatedly tortured before being charged under various accusations, without the assistance of a lawyer. Still detained to date, he was only allowed to see his relatives for few minutes and his health state continues to deteriorate because he is refused medical care. Fearing for his life, his family turned to Alkarama that sent an urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (UNSRT) to ask the Egyptian authorities to guarantee his mental and physical state and to investigate his reports of torture.