Article 71 of the Constitution states that "any arrested individual has the right to be immediately notified of the reasons for his arrest or detention, in addition to the right to contact whomever he wishes to contact and notify them of the charges made against him, ... ."
Article 41 of the Constitution states that: "except in cases when the person is caught in the act, no one may be arrested, searched, detained, or subjected to any form of restriction of freedom or movement except through the necessary warrant to carry out an investigation or to protect the security of society issued by the competent judge or public prosecution."
Article 57 of the Constitution includes protection of personal freedom and other public rights and freedoms.
Coercive disappearance takes place in contradiction with legal and procedural controls, as well as with the law and the Constitution. Article 280 of the Penal Code considers the detention of any individual without an order from the competent judicial authority a crime.
The phenomenon of enforced disappearance has emerged and spread widely in Egypt by the middle of the 90s. Such Phenomenon caused a sense of insecurity and instability among the Egyptian community.
The local human rights groups have documented 46 cases of enforced disappearances : 17 cases were documented by the Egyptian organization for Human Rights and in addition, 29 cases were documented in a recent report by the Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRCAP). The persons concerned disappeared between 1992 and 1996 .
Local groups have reported several times the cases of enforced disappearances to the Prosecutor General, the Minister of interior and the Head of prison Administration, requesting them to investigate these cases and declare the place of detention of those detainees ; however, they did not receive any response or notification of any investigation.
The FIDH urge the Egyptian authorities to duly investigate those cases, to sanction the authors of disappearances and to introduce in the legislation a specific provision to make the participation to or incitement of enforced disappearance a criminal act, in line with the UN Declaration of 1992.
The 19 cases documented by the HRCAP are :Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Hussein Hakem, Ahmed Abdel Ghani Hassaan Mohamed, Mustafa Fuad Abdel Awared, Salah Mahmud Ahmed Al Sayed, Nasser Khairy Shehata Al Mahdy, Khaled Mohamed Abdel Rahman Tarraf , Mohamed Atiya Hafez Ibrahim, Ibrahim Abdallah Mohamed Abdallah, Abdel Nasser Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Mahmud Ahmed Mahmud Ahmed Mohamed Shukeir, Arafa Ali Atiya Abul Naga, Sobhi Abdel Hadi Abdel Hakim, Bahlul Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Al Bushi, Amir Fadl Abdel Na’im Tohami, Mohamed Abdel Mohsen Hassan Dawoud, Sayed Ali Hassan Ibrahim, Nabil Mohamed Ali Hassan Al Batugi, Gamal Abdel Rahim Ibrahim Abdel Rahman, Mohamed Farghali Ali Farghali, / cf. www.hrcap.org