<\/p>\n
Mr Massoum Marzouk is an Egyptian lawyer, a human rights defender and an opponent to President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, whom he criticized several times for his policy of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances. He is currently in jail, and his life is seriously threatened.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2016, Mr Marzouk opposed the transfer of two Egyptian islands (Tiran and Sanafir) to Saudi Arabia. On behalf of politician Hamdeen Sabahi and Moustafa Bakry, he seized the Administrative tribunal and, having proved that these islands had always belonged to Egypt, he obtained the cancellation of the treaty organizing the transfer. The Egyptian State appealed the decision, which was nevertheless confirmed by the High administrative tribunal \u2013 in spite of which the islands were effectively transferred.<\/p>\n On August 5th<\/sup>, 2018, during the process of constitutional review aimed at providing Mr al-Sissi with a lifelong presidency, Mr Marzouk wrote a Facebook post proposing a referendum about the political action of the regime.<\/p>\n Less than three weeks later, Mr Marzouk was arrested at his home; the police searched the place and seized some of his goods. The raid was ordered by Mr Abbas Kamel, chief of domestic intelligence and former chief of staff of the president. No warrant was issued to justify the arrest, and the place of detention was kept secret for several days.<\/p>\n Mr Marzouk is detained in the Tora prison (Cairo) since August 23rd<\/sup>, 2018. He is charged on the ground of antiterrorist laws; but, to date, no trial was held and no hearing date was communicated.<\/p>\n Apart from extremely hard conditions of detention (isolation, privation of light\u2026), Mr Marzouk\u2019s life is seriously threatened: due to an abdominal hernia, his health condition is worsening every day. In spite of the prison doctor\u2019s recommendations, the authorities refuse that Mr Marzouk get the surgery that would save him. It further seems that this constitutes a method which Egyptian authorities resort to in order to get rid of their opponents \u2013 some of whom are in \u201ctemporary detention\u201d since 2014.<\/p>\n The OIAD<\/strong>\u00a0calls on Egyptian authorities to urgently take into account Mr Marzouk\u2019s critical health condition, and accordingly to authorize the surgery he needs, in accordance with United Nations\u2019 Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners (1990). The latter protect the right of prisoners to \u201chave access to the health services available in the country without discrimination on the grounds of their legal situation\u201d (9th<\/sup>\u00a0principle); they also recall that prisoners enjoy the rights enounced in the 1966 International covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights, amongst which the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (article 12. 1).<\/p>\n The OIAD furthermore invites Egyptian authorities to comply with United Nations\u2019 Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, according to which lawyers have, \u201clike other citizens (\u2026) the right to take part in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration of justice and the promotion and protection of human rights\u201d (23rd<\/sup>\u00a0principle).<\/p>\n Lastly, the OIAD calls on Egyptian authorities to immediately cease any arbitrary detention and, with due regard to the rule of law, to satisfy the requirements of the fair trial.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who are we?<\/strong><\/p>\n The International Observatory for Lawyers in Danger was created by the National Bar Council (France),\u00a0 the\u00a0 Paris\u00a0 Bar\u00a0 (France),\u00a0 the\u00a0 Consejo\u00a0 General\u00a0 de\u00a0 la\u00a0 Abogac\u00eda\u00a0 Espanola\u00a0 (Spain),\u00a0 and the Consiglio\u00a0 Nazionale\u00a0 Forense\u00a0 (Italy).\u00a0 Its\u00a0 goal\u00a0 is\u00a0 to\u00a0 conduct\u00a0 a\u00a0 constant\u00a0 monitoring\u00a0 on lawyers\u00a0 facing\u00a0 threats\u00a0 around\u00a0 the\u00a0 world\u00a0 because\u00a0 they lawfully practice their\u00a0 profession\u00a0 and to\u00a0 provide assistance to attorneys whose lives, freedom or practice are threatened.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"listing_category":[61],"event_category":[],"service_category":[],"rental_category":[],"classifieds_category":[],"listing_feature":[],"region":[75,1858],"class_list":["post-10020","listing","type-listing","status-publish","hentry","listing_category-imprisoned","region-africa-en","region-egypt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15211,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10020\/revisions\/15211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"listing_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_category?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"event_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_category?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"service_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/service_category?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"rental_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rental_category?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"classifieds_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/classifieds_category?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"listing_feature","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_feature?post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=10020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}