Egypt detains and forcibly disappears journalist Ahmed Bayoumy

Human rights groups and press freedom advocates have urged the Egyptian authorities to disclose the location of journalist Ahmed Bayoumy, who has been detained and forcibly disappeared for almost one month.

Security forces detained Bayoumy from his home in Giza province near Cairo in the early hours of 16 September and took him to an undisclosed location, without referring him to any investigative authorities, according to the Egyptian Network for Human Rights.   

The detention of Bayoumy, who worked as a culture-focused journalist in local Al-Diyar online news outlet, is the latest development in what the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) described in a recent statement as "a worrying wave of media workers' enforced disappearances."

All the attempts of Bayoumy's family and lawyers to contact him have since failed, as the interior ministry has reportedly denied any knowledge of his arrest.

This has prompted the head of the Egyptian Journalists’ Syndicate, Khaled ElBalshy, to file an official complaint to the prosecutor-general.

Balshy has demanded that the prosecutor-general launch an investigation into the enforced disappearance of Bayoumy, calling for the release of all journalists currently detained without trial.

"We welcome the valuable efforts made by our colleagues in Egypt to shed light on the conditions of jailed journalists and work to put an end to prolonged pretrial detention - a blatant violation of existing laws.

"The persecution of journalists is a deliberate attempt to silence the media and stop them from reporting the truth. We call on the authorities to uphold press freedom and guarantee the safety of journalists," IFJ Secretary General Anthony Bellanger said. 

Bayoumy had previously been jailed for two years without trial and was recently released after the end of the Egyptian pre-trial detention limit of two years. 

Rights groups and free press advocates have repeatedly accused Egyptian authorities of filing trumped-up charges against journalists and dissidents before the 24 months are over. By doing so, they remain “illegally” incarcerated for years without a verdict.

According to the syndicate, 16 journalists of 24 currently detained had reportedly exceeded the legal duration of detention and some have been behind bars for up to five years without being referred to court.  

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

Egypt has been ranked among the world's worst jailers of journalists, tied with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and marked at number 170 out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index.

In July this year, journalist Khaled Mamdouh and satirical cartoonist Ashraf Omar were both detained from their homes on separate night raids and disappeared for days before they appeared at the Cairo state prosecution office, charged with terrorism-related accusations.