By Yasmin Sameh
The National Council for Human Rights on Tuesday announced intentions to form committees to look into the cases of detained minors.
More than 400 students and minors have been incarcerated after clashes, protests and riots over the past three years. The most recent detainment took place on the third anniversary of 25 January, when 20 students were arrested in Maadi.
The committees will meet 11 February to follow up on the status of the detainees. They hope to end the violation of the minors’ rights by contacting authorities and pressuring them to guarantee release. They are also collecting official documentation of similar cases in hopes of preventing such arrests in future.
The National Association for Change’s Ahmed Darrag and Al-Dostour’s Ezzeldin Othman, among others, will join the committees.
The committees do not have any information on the detainees yet, said Abdel Ghaffar Shokr, Deputy Chairman of the National Association for Change. The talks were arranged to figure out where the minors are and when they were detained.
“Anyone who has any information about them is to head to the council headquarters,” Shokr said. “They will be shown to where the committee is held and present this information at 11 in the morning.”
The initiative began after interim President Adly Mansour announced on 26 January that any minor who has been incarcerated without evidence was to be released, said Tarek Zaghloul, deputy head of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights. The talks concern any student or minor who was detained at any time because of protests or clashes, especially those who were “passing by and just happened to be arrested.”
Zaghloul said the council hopes to gather more information about the detained minors, and, in turn, help facilitate their release.
