Egypt lawmaker reported missing

CAIRO — A former Egyptian lawmaker disappeared nearly three weeks ago and may have been detained by security forces, his wife said in a request sent to authorities seeking information about her husband’s whereabouts — the latest reported incident to highlight worrying incarceration practices.

Rights activists say Egyptian authorities have made dozens of people disappear in recent years as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, an elected but divisive Islamist president, in 2013.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government dismisses as unfounded accusations of its involvement, arguing that in many cases those who disappeared left their families to join Islamic militants fighting security forces in the north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Shaymaa Afifi, the wife, said in her request that Mustafa el-Nagar, 38, disappeared Sept. 27 while traveling to the southern city of Aswan. She said an unknown person informed her by telephone last week that police arrested her husband but gave her no further details.

Egypt’s main appeals court on Monday upheld a three-year prison sentence for el-Nagar and some two dozen people, including Morsi, after their convictions of insulting the judiciary.

El-Nagar had been out on appeal. His wife said he had been expected to attend Monday’s hearing at the Court of Cassation but he did not show up.

She sent a request to prosecutors and the Interior Ministry, which supervises police, asking for information about his whereabouts.

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