It was 3 a.m. on May 24 when an armed force burst into the Khalil family home. Noor Khalil opened his eyes to eight masked men. He was pulled out of bed, bound and blindfolded. Then he dropped off the face of the earth for four days. 

In an Egyptian Homeland Security building, where physical constraints were accompanied by a gun to his head, Khalil said he learned that his brother had met with the same fate, except the latter would not resurface for 122 days.

A United Nations international convention defines enforced disappearance as the arrest, detention, abduction or other deprivation of liberty by a state or state-authorized agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the act.

Having strong roots in the 1990s war against terrorism, the phenomenon is not new to Egypt. But the term “enforced disappearance” was not common, and the incidents were not as documented or systematic as they are under the current regime, according to Mohamed Lotfy, director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. Lotfy, a former Amnesty International researcher, spoke with Al-Monitor in a recent interview.