No Times de hoje #164

Still no good news coming out of Egypt a day after the fifth anniversary of the revolution. Today's New York Times article describes the pattern of "forced disappearances" happening since last year as the regime strengthens its position by cracking down on its opponents. The technique is not new and it makes some of the darkest pages of history in various countries. Yet, every new description of the practice is equally frightening.

"Instead of being held in the formal legal system — where tens of thousands of people have been detained under Mr. Sisi — people like Mr. Khalil have disappeared into a network of secretive detention centers, run by the security forces, where they are held incommunicado, without charge or access to a lawyer, for weeks and sometimes months, according to the rights groups.

There, interrogators use the detainee’s isolation and lack of legal protections to interrogate them harshly. Some have been forced to open their Facebook pages, and other social media sites, to identify friends and relatives. Many say they have been tortured.

The detainees are usually released within months or, like Mr. Khalil, charged with a crime — usually membership in the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the accusation Mr. Sisi’s government lays against many of its opponents. But others stay missing much longer, such as the political activist Ashraf Shehata, who disappeared in January 2014. And some turn up dead, their bodies dumped in morgues."