LRC SOUTH AFRICA Press Release: Protest planned at African Union Summit for Dr Bassiouni’s release… #FreeBassiouni

On Fri­day 12 June 2015 at 12h30, a protest will take place out­side the African Union Sum­mit, which is being held at the Sand­ton Inter­na­tional Con­ven­tion Cen­tre in Johan­nes­burg.

The protest is in aid of Dr Bassiouni, who has been detained in Egypt since 2 Decem­ber 2014. Sup­port­ers, friends and the fam­ily of Dr Bassiouni will be call­ing on the African Union to inter­vene in his con­tin­ued deten­tion and to secure his imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tional release.

Dr Bassiouni, a dual South African and Egypt­ian national and the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Al Tawheed Islamic Cen­tres, a non-profit organ­i­sa­tion, was detained when enter­ing Egypt to attend his daughter’s engage­ment party. Since then, he has been detained at the Torah Prison in Cairo.

Dr Bassiouni has lived in South Africa for over twenty years and, through his organ­i­sa­tion, seeks to uplift dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties.

Dur­ing the course of his deten­tion, which now exceeds six months, Dr Bassiouni has not been pro­vided with rea­sons for his deten­tion. He has also not been charged or brought to trial and his deten­tion is con­sis­tently extended with­out afford­ing him the right to make an appli­ca­tion for his release. Dr Bassiouni is in poor health and has not being afforded ade­quate access to health­care ser­vices.

The Legal Resources Cen­tre acts on behalf of Dr Bassiouni and his fam­ily, and is pur­su­ing both domes­tic and regional reme­dies to ensure that he is detained in accor­dance with accepted norms of regional and inter­na­tional human rights law, or that he is released.

Despite requests that the South African gov­ern­ment pro­vide Dr Bassiouni with diplo­matic pro­tec­tion, at this stage, the gov­ern­ment has been unable to secure con­sular access to him, ensure that his fun­da­men­tal human rights are pro­tected while in deten­tion, or secure his release.

The Friends of Bassiouni Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee has organ­ised the protest at the Afi­can Union Sum­mit in order to place pres­sure on the African Union and the Egypt­ian and South African gov­ern­ments to secure Dr Bassiouni’s release.

The LRC pro­motes the right to protest as a pow­er­ful mech­a­nism through which peo­ple can voice their con­cerns and mean­ing­fully con­tribute to advanc­ing human rights.

More infor­ma­tion about the protest can be found at https://www.facebook.com/freebassiouni.