Omar Mohamed was found in an Al-Aqrab Prison detention cell after 10 days of disappearance, his family and friends reported on Thursday.
The prison administration however still denies he is there, but the family received reports from detainees that he was seen inside the prison on 8 June, Duaa El-Taweel, the sister of Esraa El-Taweel who was taken with Omar Mohamed, said.
Esraa El-Taweel, Suhaib Saad, and Omar Mohamed all disappeared on 1 June at approximately 9:30 pm from Maadi after going out for dinner and horseback riding. Their families stated they received notice that security forces had arrested around 150 people from Maadi that day.
Families still have no information the whereabouts of El-Taweel and Saad. Human Rights Monitor reported 44 cases of forced disappearances in May. The organisation expressed “extreme worry” at the degree to which this phenomenon is increasing in Egypt.
On Tuesday, the National Council for Human Rights invited the families of the disappeared to report on the cases. “They collected data on the forcibly disappeared… their names, ages, and contact information,” El-Taweel said. “They said they will try to move or escalate action.”
The council received 55 cases of forced disappearances.
According to human rights workers, security forces have been escalating their use of this tactic as they arrest people from their homes, usually at dawn, or take them from the streets and do not register them in any police station or prison.
Families and lawyers will not learn of the whereabouts of the detained until days or weeks later, when the detained persons show up in front of prosecution or are found in a prison.Often the disappeared persons may show up in military courts. This was the case with the Arab Sharkas executions of six young men early May, who had been forcibly disappeared a year earlier.
Mona Seif, an activist who works with detainees, reported a case in which Sammar Al-Naggar who was arrested from her home on 10 February and was not found until 10 or 11 days later in Al-Qanater prison where she had been detained for 120 days.
Seif previously told Daily News Egypt that there is little the families can do besides send a telegraph to the prosecution’s office reporting that their children have gone missing.
