Lawyer: Detainees held at national security site after participating in solidarity protest for Gaza, Sudan

Security forces arrested several activists on Tuesday from outside the headquarters of the UN Women’s regional office in Maadi, Cairo, where the activists had gathered to show solidarity with women in Gaza and Sudan.

Participants in the protest and other activists circulated the names of at least 14 people who were arrested when the protest was dispersed, including some who were not participants but who were passing at the time of the protest dispersal.

Maadi Police Station denied knowledge of the whereabouts of those arrested, lawyers told Mada Masr. Yet officials at the National Security Agency headquarters in Maadi confirmed that the detainees were present at its facility to the head of the Maadi Lawyers Syndicate branch, lawyer Fatima Serag told Mada Masr. 

The NSA officials did not confirm the names or number of those arrested, Serag said. 

Ola Shahba, one of the participants in the protest, told Mada Masr that the protest began at approximately 2:15 p.m. A statement of solidarity was read out, demanding an end to the Occupation’s aggression on Gaza and an end to the war in Sudan. Soon after, an employee of the UN office came out to request that representatives of the protest enter the headquarters to present their demands, and three entered.

About 15 minutes later, police personnel outside the UN office began to intervene in the protest, said Shahba. One police official snatched the phone of one of the participants. Protestors tried to stop him but he hurried to leave in a car. 

The UN employee then asked all of the protest participants to enter the headquarters who were prepared to do so, but insisted that they would not leave the area until the phone was retrieved.

At that moment, a larger group of police officials emerged, and one of the officers tried to drag journalist Rasha Azab into a police microbus. Other participants tried to prevent him, but the officer physically assaulted them and arrested Azab, said Shahba.

Lawyer and activist Mahienour al-Massry was then beaten and dragged to the police microbus, while  Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Gender and Human Rights Officer Lobna Darwish and journalists Iman Ouf and Hadeer al-Mahdawy were also arrested, along with lawyer Ragia Omran, her personal driver, and activists Mai al-Mahdi, Asmaa Naeem, and Farida al-Hefny. 

A larger number of participants in the protest also disappeared after the dispersal and their phones were turned off.

Several others have reportedly gone missing since the incident, according to Shahba. Journalist Youssef Shaaban, who was present in the vicinity of the UN headquarters without participating in the protest, and journalist Mohamed Farag who passed by the area by chance while on his way to pick up his child from a nursery.