Salah Soltan, the father of prominent US-based advocate Mohamed Soltan, was forcibly disappeared by Egyptian authorities and has been held incommunicado since June 2020. The prison conditions described by Salah Soltan include extended periods of solitary confinement that may amount to torture. Reports in 2023 indicated that Salah Soltan was deprived adequate health care despite his life-threatening conditions. It is evident that the actions against him were in retaliation for his son’s work, given that Soltan was arbitrarily arrested weeks after his son filed a civil suit in a US federal court against the former Egyptian prime minister, Hazem al-Beblawy. The lawsuit alleged torture by the Egyptian authorities. Other members of the Soltan family have also been targeted, including five male cousins who were arrested in June 2020 for five months. The homes of six extended family members were also raided. Ethiopia In June 2016, several members of Australia’s Ethiopian community who are from Somali Regional State protested an Ethiopian regional government delegation’s planned visit to Australia. Later, the protesters learned that the Ethiopian government had arrested dozens of their relatives back in Somali Regional State because of their involvement in the protest. In one case, a 70-year-old mother of one of the protesters was arrested and allegedly beaten in custody. Before taking her to a military camp, a paramilitary unit called the Liyu police asked her: “Are you the mother of [name withheld]? Your son created trouble for the [regional] president.” Several Ethiopians who attended the protest in Australia reported that pro-government members of the Ethiopian community in Australia had called them in the days following the protests and pressed them to make a video supporting the president of Somali Regional State to secure the release of their relatives. Said one protester: “I don’t feel safe here.... I thought I was safe.” Russia Local governor Ramzan Kadyrov has long been responsible for violent repression in Chechnya, including repeatedly engaging in collective punishment against families of alleged Kadyrov opponents. In December 2021, unidentified assailants in Chechnya abducted dozens of relatives of activists living abroad. This included the relatives of Tumsu Abdurakhmanov, an opposition blogger living in Sweden. Abdurakhmanov received text messages, presumably from those behind the abduction, alleging that his loved ones were being ill-treated and stating that they will be released only when Abdurakhmanov stops all 23 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2024