Egypt detains at least 16 women protesting for Sudan, Gaza outside UN office

At least 16 Egyptian feminists were detained in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Tuesday as they held a peaceful protest in solidary with women in the war-ravaged Sudan and Gaza.

Witnesses told The New Arab that Egyptian security forces violently dispersed a peaceful gathering of about two dozen protesters, mostly female journalists, human rights lawyers and activists, outside the UN Women's regional office in the Maadi neighourhood.

Veteran journalists Eman Ouf and Rasha Azab, and high-profile activists, including lawyers Mahienour El-Masry and  Ragia Omran, attempted to hand in a letter to officials at the UN Women's Office to object to what they described as "the indifference towards the violations committed against women during wars in Sudan and Gaza."

The detainees were reportedly subjected to enforced disappearance as their whereabouts remained unknown for long hours till early Wednesday.

When contacted by TNA shortly after the incident, Ouf's mobile phone was out of service while her Facebook account was deactivated.

Renowned rights lawyer Khaled Ali wrote on his Facebook page that so far 18 names have been collected in a list, including two men and some passersby.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights denounced the arrest of their Women’s Rights programme Director, researcher Lobna Darwish, calling in a statement on the prosecutor-general to investigate violations allegedly committed by the security forces against the protesters.   

A video that went viral over the past hours showed plain-clothed police forces violently dispersing and beating up the protesters.

TNA could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Prominent human rights lawyer Nabeh Elganadi wrote on his Facebook page that some of the detainees finally showed up at the state prosecution’s office, without elaborating further.

Overnight, several human rights lawyers as well as the head of the Journalists' Syndicate, Khaled ElBalshy, told TNA that the peaceful protesters were nowhere to be found after all police stations close to the protest site denied that they held them in custody.

Later on Wednesday morning, a member of Ouf’s family told TNA that she finally showed up at the state security prosecution’s office on the outskirts of Cairo, the capital of a country ranked as the world's third-worst jailer of journalists.

The dispersal of the protest has sent shockwaves across the country over the past hours with social media activists and human rights advocates sharing updates on the status of the detainees.  

Statistically, around 7.8 million Egyptian women undergo a form of gender-based violence every year, according to a UN survey released in 2015.

No further details were immediately available on the legal status of the detainees at the publication time.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has run the country with an iron fist since he seised power following a 2013 coup. Media freedom and civil rights have sharply deteriorated since then.