On April 30, 1977, 14 women walked to Mayo Square in Buenos Aires near the presidential palace, crying “we want to know the fate of our children.” They have been called the “Mothers of Mayo Square” since that day.
This happened in a country where abductions and forced disappearances were sudden, although it did have a constitution and laws.
Mothers of Mayo Square
In December 1983, those mothers, whose children were abducted by dictatorial regimes, and who became a symbol of the struggle against forced disappearance, succeeded in removing the famous Argentinian dictator, Reynaldo Bignone. His departure ended two decades of military dictatorship, which started with a coup led by Jorge Rafael Videla in 1976.
According to the United Nations statistics, 30,000 cases of forced disappearances, 15,000 executions, 80,000 political detentions and 1.5 million cases of exile were recorded during those two decades.
Israa al-Tawil
In Egypt, which still refuses to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Forced Disappearances, Human Rights Watch recorded 44 cases of forced disappearances from March to May 2015. The Egyptian Coordination of Rights and Freedoms reported 1,250 cases from January to August 2015 and Karama Human Rights recorded over 1,000 cases for the same period. Additionally, the National Council for Human Rights reported 163 cases of forced disappearance and 64 cases of illegal detention.
A famous case of forced disappearance in 2015 was that of Israa al-Tawil, the photojournalist who disappeared on June 1 with two of her friends, Suhaib Saad and Omar Mohamed. She was found 15 days later in Qanater prison.
Tawil is still in detention on charges of joining a terrorist group and spreading false news that could disturb public security and peace. To this day, the Interior Ministry has not clarified why it denied the fact that Tawil had been arrested.
Mustafa al-Masony
The latest case of forced disappearance was that of Mustafa al-Masony, an activist who disappeared on June 26 and whose whereabouts are still unknown.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
