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Saturday, June 13, 2015

Where are Esraa El-Taweel and friends ?

Where is Esraa El-Taweel? Where is Sohip Saad? Where is Omar Mohamed? 

For 13 day, Freelance photographer and University student Eraa El-Taweel has  disappeared along with her friends Sohip Saad and Omar Mohamed in Maadi since 1 June 2015 when they all went for horseback riding and then dinner.
Sohip , Esraa and Omar
They have not been seen since then. Their mobile phones have been closed yet last week the families of El-Taweel and Mohamed got missed calls from their mobile phones for one just one second and then the mobile phones went off.
The Ministry of interior as well the military prosecution denied that they were detained as their facilities and detention centers as it was spread earlier.
 There was a popular theory that Esraa was arrested because she was taking photos at the Corniche El-Nil in Maadi and the military police arrested her and her friends. Nevertheless
I know Esraa El-Taweel as a blogger and tweep.
She is also a very talented photographer in the revolution who is outgoing and cheerful, loving life and adventure.
Esraa and her camera 
She was raised in Saudi Arabia where her father works yet she came to Egypt to complete her university  study. A friendly person, El-Taweel had friends from Islamists , liberals and leftists. El-Taweel was close and a friend to many young MB members and she used to take photos of their weddings. Yet Esraa El-Taweel is not an MB member.
She used to cover the protests but she was not a political activist.
On 25 January 2014, the cheerful and outgoing girl was shot by security forces when they dispersed the protests at Mostafa Mahmoud square during the commemoration of the January revolution anniversary.
The injury made her lose her ability to walk and already there is another firearm shot was still in her body, in her stomach to be precise that can not be extracted. For many months, Esraa could not move and was using a wheelchair. Only from couple months ago Esraa began to move around without a wheelchair.
After her injury, Esraa began to lose in politics and called her friends not to go to Pro-Morsi rallies and protests because they would either shot down or injured or arrested. She was only cared about her family, her friends and her pets especially her cat Woody. Now Woody is depressed after the sudden absence of her friend and does not want to eat.

Why am I saying all this?

I am not justifying the forcible disappearance of anybody yet some websites like Dot Misr and other Pro-regime websites spreading lies like Esraa El-Taweel was the spokesperson of the MB’s “Women against Coup” in order to justify her disappearance indirectly in a very disgusting way.
El-Taweel already used to mock the MB’s attitudes especially against women as well the hardcore MB women’s actions and attitudes after ousting Morsi calling them “Haraeir Creatures”. { MB used Haraeir to describe their female members and fan base, the Arabic term which means Free Women in Arabic is originally used in Syria to describe the Pro-Revolution women supporters in 2011 and 2012}.
Erass’s family has not stopped searching for her everywhere. Her sisters back in Egypt sent telegram about her sudden disappearance to the Prosecutor general and the President.
The trio 

Sohip Saad, the political sciences student disappeared with Esraa and Omar , he was them. Sohip already was among the four students released pending the retrial of famous Al Jazeera international case  along with journalists Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. Saad is already accused of sending material to Al Jazeera network and joining a banned organization aka The Muslim Brotherhood. Of course brotherhood is designated as a terrorist organization.

Former Al Jazeera International Journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy tweeted from a couple of days that Sohip , Esraa and Omar were detained at Egypt’s State security or rather Homeland security HQ as it is being called now in Maadi.

The Homeland security denied as well the ministry of interior has maintained denying that it knew anything about the fate of the three young people. Already during the on-going retrial of Al-Jazeera International journalists or as known in the Egyptian media as “The Marriott Cell” Case , the Criminal court judge issued an arrest warrant for Sohip Saad who did not show in court on Thursday.I am not a legal expert, but already I do not understand if this is a legal procedure normally is done when one of the defendants is absent in court.

Sohip Saad’s family reported officially his disappearance to the authorities. It is worth to mention that since his release in February and according to his social media activity, Sohip Saad used to hang out with his friends including Esraa El-Taweel just like any other young man in his age. He also used to go to his parole officer at El-Haram police station according to my knowledge on time.
Esraa taking a snapshot for Omar in her homeland Behaira 
Omar Mohamed,a friend of Esraa and Sohip was also taken with them to the unknown. I did not know him before but from the words of his sister and friends, this young was not engaged in politics and was only focusing on gaming and Xbox.His sister Maram even wrote a Facebook post speaking about how her brother, an engineer loved films and TV shows only . She even launched a hashtag called “Freedom for those who are not interested in politics.”

إيه ياعُمر.. مش مكسوف من نفسك كدة يا بابا والناس عمالة تجيب في سيرة إسراء الطويل اللي انت مخطوف معاها، وماحدش عارف يجيب...
Posted by Maram Mohamad on Thursday, June 4, 2015

From a couple of days, ago Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed El-Shamy said that Omar Mohamed appeared at Maximum security “The scorpion prison” in Tora prison at the outskirts of Cairo in Ward “H”.


Tora prson denied that Omar Mohamed was detained at the complex. Last week Minister of interior aide for media and public relations said on TV that there was no information about Esraa and her friends whereabouts promising to investigate the matter.

Police general Abu Bakr speaks about Esraa and friends

Sadly enough as well shockingly enough when Esraa’s sisters Duaa and Alaa El-Taweel went to report the disappearance of her sister and her friends to the National council for human rights last week , they found out that many reports about missing people in Egypt since August 2013.

They also found that the forcible disappearing cases have been increasing fearfully in the past two months, especially this month.

انهارده روحنا نقدم شكوى للمجلس القومي لحقوق الانسان في اجتماع لاهالي المختفين اختفاء قسري، ايه دا !! ايه اللي بيحصل في ا...
Posted by ‎آلاء الطويل‎ on Tuesday, June 9, 2015

The National Council for Human rights which officially follows the
 state announced last week that it received a special report from “Freedom to the Brave campaign” about the forcible disappearance of 163 people since April as well 50 complaints from families about the disappearance of their relatives. Most of the reported cases are for youth who are some of them affiliated to political groups like
April 6 Youth.
Woody and Esraa 
According to “Freedom to the Brave Campaign” ‘s report , since April there have been 66 forcible disappearance cases according to international standards recorded and 64 cases of arbitrary detention as well 31 cases that could not be followed or traced. The majority of the cases recorded were in Cairo then in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate then in Giza.
Recently April 6 youth reported that several members disappeared across the country. Some of them appeared later detained illegally in police stations and were released for several days while others are not lucky yet.
The case of Esraa and her friends highlighted the recent forcible disappearance cases in Egypt.
I am sad and angry of myself that I am only writing now about Esraa and her friends but at least I am glad that several websites in Arabic and English spoke about her.
I feel helpless and to be honest her disappearance was overshadowing my week with all the fears on her safety  as well her future.
I just want Esraa to return safe to her Cat Woody and her ladybirds , Sohip to return to his family and friends and Omar to return to his films and his Xbox.  I am praying for the safety of the three especially Esraa.
I just want the regime and its supporters to respect the law and constitution before human rights.


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