Human rights lawyer Mahienour El Massry arrested
Egypt
Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L) and Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) have grave concerns about the detention of human rights lawyer Mahienour El-Massry. In a joint letter to the Egyptian authorities, L4L and LRWC called for the immediate release of Mahienour El-Massry.
On 18 November 2017, Ms. El-Massry attended a session of the misdemeanour court in Alexandria in relation to her alleged participation in a protest against the government’s transfer of the Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia in June 2016. The court adjourned the case until 30 December 2017, and also ordered the two defendants that were present, Ms. El-Massry and Mr. Moatasem Medhat, to remain in custody pending trial. The case also concerns human rights lawyer Asmaa Naeem, lawyer Waleed El Ammary and Zeyad Abou Fadl. The five of them are accused of “participating in an unauthorized protest”, “insulting the President” and thuggery.
Ms. El-Massry is a prominent human rights lawyer and won the renowned Ludovic Trarieux Prize in 2014 for her outstanding efforts to advance human rights. This is not the first time she was arrested. Since 2014, she has spent lengthy periods in Egyptian prison under difficult circumstances. In 2015, she was sentenced to one year and three months imprisonment on charges of, amongst others, “assaulting security forces”.
L4L and LRWC believe that the arrest of Mahienour El-Massry is part of a wider crackdown by the Egyptian authorities against human rights defenders, lawyers, and independent civil society. In 2017 several lawyers, including Khaled Ali, Tarek Hussein, Mohamed Ramadan en Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy, were arrested. L4L will closely follow further developments in Egypt.