The Journalists' Syndicate has accused the Interior Ministry of kidnapping another one of its members, hours after it blamed security forces for kidnapping two others.
In a statement on Sunday, the syndicate said Mahmoud Mostafa, a journalist working for privately-owned Al-Nahar newspaper, disappeared last Friday on his way to the Cairo International Airport for a trip to London.
“The syndicate received a concerned call from the colleague’s wife about his disappearance following a conversation she had with him concerning his departure,” the syndicate said in its letter to the General Prosecutor, Nabil Sadeq. It added that Mostafa had told his wife he had been arrested for unknown reasons.
The syndicate said Mostafa had legally obtained a student visa from the British embassy in Cairo
The call came hours after the syndicate decried the arrest and disappearance of two other members, Hesham Gaafar and Hossam al-Sayyed last week.
Gaafar, the director of NGO Mada for Media Development, is reportedly accused of receiving illicit foreign funding, as well as being affiliated with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. His organization runs OnIslam.net (formerly Islamonline.net), which had previously been accused of having ties with the Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, the reason behind al-Sayyed’s detention remain unknown.
Human rights and political activists have increasingly become critical of warrantless arrests and the disappearance of activists over the past two years, since Sisi's election in 2014.
Freedom for the Brave, an independent group offering support to political detainees, reported 164 cases of forced disappearances between April and June 2015, numbers that were backed by the National Council for Human Rights.
