05 Oct 2020; MEMO: A female Egyptian journalist has been forcibly disappeared as she was covering popular protests against the regime of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, news agencies reported yesterday.
Thirty-year-old Basma Mustafa, who worked for Al-Manassa news website, was covering the police crackdown against protesters in Luxor after a youth was killed last week.
Her co-workers last heard from her at 11:15am on Saturday when she reported that a policeman was monitoring her after checking her ID.
“A policeman stopped me in Luxor city, checked my ID and then allowed me to continue on my way,” she was reported by Al-Manassa saying. “But the policeman kept following me,” she added.
On Sunday evening, Al Jazeera reported her lawyer and her family saying that Mustafa had appeared at the headquarters of Egypt’s state security prosecution in Cairo.
Her husband, Karim Abdel-Rady, a rights lawyer, was reported saying she appeared before state security prosecution in Cairo. This was confirmed by Khaled Ali, another lawyer involved in the case.
Al-Manassa reported that Mustafa was interrogated and ordered to remain in custody for 14 days; her lawyers did not know what charges she faced because they were not allowed to attend the interrogation.
Egyptians have been protesting since 20 September against the ruling regime after soaring prices have left people unable to eat and house demolitions have left them homeless.
The protests were called for by whistleblower Mohamed Ali, who last year ignited anti-regime protests after his allegations of corruption.
