Egypt: On his 25th birthday, rights organizations renew demand for disclosure of fate of Ahmed Hassan Mustafa, forcibly disappeared for over six years

The undersigned human rights organizations express their deep concern over the ongoing enforced disappearance of student Ahmed Hassan Mustafa, who turns 25 on September 1, 2025, having spent more than six years and four months away from his family and loved ones.

 The organizations call for the immediate disclosure of his fate, allowing his family and lawyer to know his place and conditions of detention, and for a thorough investigation into all complaints filed by his family regarding his disappearance. 

The organizations also reiterate their demand for the immediate disclosure of the fate of all victims of enforced disappearance in Egypt and for an end to this crime.

According to his family, security forces arrested Ahmed Hassan Mustafa, a first-year law student, in early April 2019 near his home in the Mokattam district of Cairo. Until now, the family has not been able to obtain any official information regarding his whereabouts or fate, despite submitting numerous complaints to the Mokattam Police Station, the Office of the Public Prosecutor, and the National Council for Human Rights. 

The Mokattam Police Station even refused to file a report documenting Ahmed’s disappearance without providing reasons. In November 2019, his family filed lawsuit No. 5811 of judicial year 74, demanding that the Ministry of Interior be obliged to disclose Ahmed’s fate. On March 14, 2020, the Administrative Court ruled in favor of the family, ordering the Ministry of Interior to reveal his whereabouts. However, the Ministry refused to implement the ruling and appealed against it. In September 2020, the Administrative Court rejected the Ministry’s appeal, yet the Ministry continued to ignore the court’s ruling and refrained from disclosing Ahmed’s fate—constituting a blatant violation of the rule of law and prolonging the family’s suffering.

Ahmed Mustafa’s disappearance is part of a systematic practice pursued by the Egyptian authorities for more than a decade, often accompanied by other crimes such as torture and unfair trials based on forced confessions, extracted in total isolation from the outside world, without investigation or judicial accountability for enforced disappearance and torture crimes. In the absence of transparency regarding the numbers and fate of the disappeared, and with continued impunity for perpetrators, thousands of families face the same ordeal. According to the Stop Enforced Disappearances Campaign, 4,253 cases have been documented from 2015 until the end of August 2024.

The continued disappearance of Ahmed and others, the executive authorities’ refusal to implement judicial rulings requiring disclosure of their fate, and the judiciary’s failure to investigate the complaints submitted by families constitute serious violations of Egypt’s international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

The Egyptian government’s insistence on rejecting international recommendations - most recently during the Universal Periodic Review in January - calling for an end to enforced disappearances and disclosure of the fate of the disappeared, while denying the existence of such cases despite extensive documentation by local and international organizations, reflects the authorities’ intention to continue these crimes.

In this context, the undersigned organizations call on the Egyptian authorities to:

1. Immediately disclose the whereabouts of student Ahmed Hassan Mustafa, guarantee his physical and psychological safety, and allow him unrestricted communication with his family and lawyer, as well as reveal the fate of all victims of enforced disappearance in Egypt.

2. Implement all judicial rulings issued in his favor, foremost among them the March 14, 2020 ruling of the Administrative Court obliging the Ministry of Interior to reveal his whereabouts.

3. Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and harmonize national legislation with Egypt’s international obligations in this regard.

Signatory organizations:

• Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms
• Stop Enforced Disappearances Campaign
• El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture
• Foundation for Support of Law and Democracy
• Refugees Platform in Egypt
• EgyptWide for Human Rights
• Egyptian Human Rights Forum
• Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
• Egyptian Front for Human Rights