(C) Common Dreams
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All According to Plan [1]

['Omar Shakir']

Date: 2014-08-12

President al-Sisi takes over an Egypt bloodied, divided, and rife with deep economic and political challenges. While it is tempting to turn the page and look past prior abuses, reckoning with the past lies at the heart of the national reconciliation process that Egypt needs to undertake in order to stabilize and move forward.

In light of the ongoing abuses and severe political repression in Egypt and the government’s failure to investigate, much less prosecute those implicated in, the mass killings of protesters, Human Rights Watch calls on states to suspend military aid and cooperation with Egyptian law enforcement and military until the government adopts measures to end serious human rights violations.

The European Union and the United States have both publicly criticized the mass killings in Egypt. EU High Representative Catherine Ashton for example on August 21, 2013 called the dispersal operations “disproportionate” and the “number of people who have been killed” “alarming.”However the EU and other states have continued to provide support to Egypt. The United States suspended a portion of its military aid in October 2013 pending a finding required in aid legislation that Egypt was meeting particular benchmarks on rights and democratic development. But in April 2014, Washington announced its intention to release 10 Apache helicopters and $650 million in military aid on the basis of US counter-terrorism and national security interests. A bulk of the aid has since been released. The EU similarly suspended the export of military equipment to Egypt in August 2013, but left in place flexibility that permits individual states to continue supplying arms and other equipment to the government.

Human Rights Watch further calls for the investigation and prosecution of those implicated in these acts in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national laws.

In light of the failure of Egyptian authorities until now to undertake investigations and continuing rampant impunity for serious abuses, Human Rights Watch calls on the UN Human Rights Council member states to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate all human rights violations resulting from the mass killing of demonstrators since June 30, 2013. The inquiry should be mandated to establish the facts, identify those responsible with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators of violations are held accountable, as well as collect and conserve information related to abuses for future use by credible judicial institutions. Such a call follows a joint declaration made by 27 states during the March session of the Human Rights Council, which cited the need for “accountability” and “bring[ing] to justice those responsible” for the violence.

The new Egyptian government should also acknowledge the serious violations that it committed in July and August 2013, provide fair compensation to victims’ families, and undertake a serious process of security sector reform that results in a police force that acts in accordance with international standards on the use of force in future policing of demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch reiterates calls it has made throughout the last year for the Public Prosecutor to thoroughly, independently, and impartially investigate the mass killings of protesters since June 30, 2013 and prosecute those found to have committed violations. Government statements make clear that the August 14 dispersals and attacks on demonstrators before and after were ordered by the government. As such, investigations must look at those responsible in the chain of command, including Interior Minister Ibrahim and then-Defense Minister and now President al-Sisi, ensuring that all perpetrators of serious human rights abuses are brought to justice regardless of rank or political affiliation.

Since the events of July and August 2013, Egyptian authorities have continued to brutally suppress dissent. While focused overwhelmingly on the country’s largest political opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, authorities have also targeted other opposition groups and individuals. Security forces have continued to use excessive lethal force against demonstrators, including killing 57 protesters on October 6, 2013 and 64 on January 25, 2014, according to the FMA. An assembly law passed in November 2013 authorizes the Interior Ministry to forcibly disperse protests that they have not been approved in advance and to arrest demonstrators on vague grounds such as “attempt[ing] to influence the course of justice” or “imped[ing] citizen’s interests.” Authorities have also arrested, by their figures, at least 22,000 people since July 3, many on charges relating to their exercise of basic rights or for membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government declared a terrorist organization on December 25, 2013. Prosecutors routinely renew pretrial detention orders against those detained on the basis of little evidence that would warrant prosecution, effectively detaining them arbitrarily for months on end, lawyers have told Human Rights Watch. Many of the cases that have gone to trial have been riddled with serious due process violations, including mass trials that have failed to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, yet resulted in sentences of lengthy prison terms or even the death penalty for hundreds of defendants.

Five months after promising to do, Mansour announced in December 2013 that he had established “a national independent fact-finding commission to gather information and evidence that accompanied the June 30, 2013 revolution and its repercussions.” The committee, though, has operated with little transparency and, by its mandate, will not make its findings public. The decree establishing the committee further failed to provide it with the authority to compel witnesses, including governmental officials, to testify or to subpoena information, raising questions about the sort of information it has relied upon during its investigation.

One year after the dispersals, authorities have failed to hold accountable police and army officers and other officials responsible for the repeated use of excessive lethal force and indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on protesters. On March 19, former President Mansour requested the Justice Ministry to open a judicial investigation into the Rab’a and Nahda dispersals. The Ministry of Justice, however, announced that it would not be assigning a judge to investigate these events, since investigations fall under the prerogative of the public prosecutor, which in turn says that it is already investigating these events. Almost one year later though, prosecutors have yet to bring charges against or refer to trial a single member of the security forces for the unlawful use of firearms against protesters since June 30, 2013.

Prosecutors to Human Rights Watch’s knowledge have not seriously investigated police or army officers for protester killings since June 30, 2013, but have extensively investigated protesters in relation to clashes with security forces. Prosecutors have initiated criminal proceedings against over 1,000 protesters and bystanders detained from the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals alone. Many face lengthy prison sentences.

The NCHR report on the Rab’a dispersal, released on March 16, has significant methodological weaknesses that seriously undermine its findings. In particular it relies heavily on testimony of local residents, largely antipathetic to the Brotherhood, and there is little use of accounts of participants in the sit-ins, who were the primary witnesses and victims. Nonetheless, the NCHR report concluded that security forces used excessive force on August 14 and faulted security forces for insufficient warnings and failure to provide a safe exit for much of the day. It also called for the opening of a full judicial inquiry into the dispersal and for the provision of victim compensation.

The government also has refused to publicly disclose almost any information on the dispersals, even to the NCHR in connection with its investigation. Nasser Amin, a member of NCHR and lead author of its report on the Rab’a dispersal, said on the Egyptian channel ONTV that the Interior Ministry did not cooperate with its investigation, including failing to provide its dispersal plan, and suggested that it sought to hide the truth. Although video footage of helicopters and buildings overlooking Rab’a Square show security forces recording the dispersal, the Interior Ministry has only selectively released footage pointing to violence on the parts of some demonstrators.

The government has created a fact-finding committee to investigate the mass killings and the quasi-official National Council on Human Rights has released a report on its own investigations into the Rab’a dispersal finding wrongdoing. However, there has been no actual accounting for what happened or any credible judicial investigations or prosecutions, much less actual accountability. The police and government to date have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of security services in their violent dispersal of the sit-ins or other attacks on protesters. In a news conference on August 14, Interior Minister Ibrahim said that his ministry successfully had carried out the dispersal of the Rab’a and al-Nahda sit-ins “without losses,” and referred to a non-existent “international standard death rate of 10 percent in the dispersal of non-peaceful sit-ins.” Days later, the Interior Ministry provided all officers that participated in the dispersal with a bonus for their efforts. Until February, authorities failed to even acknowledge that they had used live ammunition in the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals. Other members of the government have similarly praised security forces and failed to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of security forces.

The report further identifies other figures, including the head of the General Intelligence Services, Mohamed Farid Tohamy, eight key Interior Ministry deputies, three senior army leaders, and several high-ranking civilian leaders, whose roles in the mass protester killings of July-August 2013 should be investigated further. If found complicit in the planning or execution of the mass killings of protesters or failing to prevent crimes committed by their subordinates that they knew or should have known about, they should also be held accountable.

This report identifies the most senior security officials and key leaders in the chain of command who should be investigated and, where there is evidence of responsibility, held individually accountable for the planning and execution or failing to prevent the widespread and systematic killings of protesters during July-August 2013, including:

Moreover, the systematic and widespread use by Egyptian security forces of unlawful lethal force, resulting in the deaths of well over 1,000 protesters, in a manner that was not only anticipated, but planned by Egyptian government leaders, likely constitutes crimes against humanity. The mass killings at Rab’a and al-Nahda squares fit a pattern of government security forces’ widespread and systematic killings of protesters seen throughout July and August 2013 following Morsy’s ouster. The prohibition of crimes against humanity is among the most fundamental in international criminal law and can be the basis for individual criminal liability in international fora, as well as in domestic courts in many countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

International legal standards allow the intentional use of lethal force in policing situations in limited circumstances where strictly necessary to protect life. While security services may have been justified in using a degree of force to stop armed attacks by protesters or even to disperse protests that constituted a danger to public security, there is no justification for the manner and scale of the violence that was used. Those planning the dispersal operations were under a strict duty to take all feasible measures to ensure the operations posed a minimal risk to life, which the organizers comprehensively failed to do.

Both the police and army took part in the attacks on demonstrators. Army units played the primary role in confronting demonstrators outside the Republican Guard headquarters on July 5 and 8, though police participated as well. Police dispersed the July 27 march outside the Manassa Memorial and the August 16 demonstration in Ramses Square. Police, including both Central Security Forces (CSF) and Special Forces (ESF), took the lead role in the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals, though the army played a critical role. Army forces secured the entrances, inhibiting protesters from entering and exiting, operated some of the bulldozers that cleared the way for police to advance, operated some of the helicopters, including Apaches, that flew over the square, and opened a military base adjacent to Rab’a Square to snipers. Police officers led the advance into Rab’a Square and appear to be responsible for most of the force used there.

Two days after the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals, on August 16, police at the Azbakiya police station in the Abbasiyya neighborhood of central Cairo opened fire on hundreds of protesters who had gathered after the Friday noon prayer as part of a “Day of Anger” called by Brotherhood supporters to protest the dispersal of the sit-ins and ouster of Morsy. In the course of the next six hours, at least 120 protesters were killed, according to the FMA. Prosecutors have also identified two policemen who were killed. A senior police officer at the station told Human Rights Watch that gunmen attacked the police station, triggering the government response. Although gunmen attacking the police station might have justified the use of lethal force, the number of protesters killed, statements by victims and witnesses, including independent observers, and video footage show that the police intentionally fired on largely peaceful protesters. Human Rights Watch documented several instances of police killing clearly unarmed protesters. Witnesses who saw bodies and wounded in the hospitals and morgues, including medical personnel and journalists, told Human Rights Watch that a high number of protesters had suffered wounds in the head, neck, and upper body, raising the question of whether some police officers may have been shooting to kill.

In another incident morning. or failing to intervene. ies, they failed to count an additional 90 on July 27, hours after thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in an orchestrated demonstration at al-Sisi’s behest to give the government a “mandate to fight terrorism,” Egyptian police deployed to stop a march of hundreds of Brotherhood supporters moving out of the Rab’a sit-in on Nasr Road towards the October 6 Bridge. Over a period of at least six hours, police and plainclothes armed men acting in coordination with security forces shot and killed 95 protesters, according to the FMA. One policeman also died in the clashes. Human Rights Watch’s investigation of this incident, which included being in the field hospital as many of the dead and wounded were brought in, concluded that security forces used intentional lethal force against largely peaceful protesters. Medical staff reported that the majority of the bullet injuries were to the head, neck, and chest, indicative of intent to kill. A doctor on the scene concluded based on the nature of the wounds that the shootings had to have been from close range. Later in the day, the interior minister insisted, “We never, as police, pointed any firearms at the chest of any demonstrator.”

Three days later, on July 8, army units opened fire on crowds of Morsy supporters participating in a peaceful sit-in outside the same Republican Guard headquarters, killing 61 protesters according to the FMA. Two officers on the scene were also killed. The attack began at dawn and continued for the next six hours. Soldiers and snipers posted on military building rooftops used live ammunition to fire at assembled protesters and those emerging from a nearby mosque after performing morning prayers. Some protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails and a few used firearms, but witnesses said that the vast majority of protesters were unarmed. Based on its investigation, Human Rights Watch found that the majority of these killings were unlawful. In the aftermath, the military refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of its forces or the police, saying that protesters had planned to attack the Republican Guard headquarters. Interim President Adly Mansour said he would set up a judicial panel to investigate the incident, but he failed to do so before leaving office on June 8, 2014.

In the first of these incidents, on July 5, soldiers fired live ammunition at protesters gathered outside the Republican Guard headquarters on Salah Salem Street in eastern Cairo, where protesters believed Morsy to be held. The soldiers killed at least five protesters, including one who was attempting to place a Morsy poster on a fence outside the headquarters.

The Rab’a and al-Nahda square dispersals were both preceded and followed by other mass killings of protesters. In July and August, as protesters organized marches across Cairo in response to the military’s overthrow of the Morsy government, security forces repeatedly used excessive force to respond to demonstrations, indiscriminately and deliberately killing at least 281 protesters in different incidents separate from the August 14 dispersals between July 5 and August 17, 2014.

These figures, though, ignore compelling evidence of additional uncounted bodies in morgues and hospitals across Cairo documented by Human Rights Watch researchers and Egyptian human rights lawyers on August 14 and in the days immediately following the Rab’a dispersal. Based on an extensive review of evidence, which compared death lists put out both by the official FMA and quasi-official NCHR and human rights lawyers and other survivors, Human Rights Watch documented 817 deaths in the Rab’a dispersal alone. Human Rights Watch also reviewed evidence of a possible 246 additional deaths, documented by survivors and civil society groups. This evidence, in addition to credible reports of additional bodies taken directly to hospitals and morgues without accurate record or known identity, and individuals still missing from Rab’a, it is likely that over 1,000 protesters were killed in Rab’a alone.

On November 14, FMA head Dr. Hisham Abdelhamid held a press conference and announced that the final death-toll for Rab’a was 627, including 377 bodies autopsied at the official morgue, 167 bodies identified in Iman Mosque Rab’a Square and another 83 bodies that were taken to different hospitals around Cairo. The quasi-official National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) released a report on the Rab’a dispersal in March 2014, in which it cited the figure of 624 civilians killed.

In September, Prime Minister al-Beblawy told the Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm that the death toll from the Rab’a and al-Nahda square dispersals on August 14 was “close to 1,000.” He added, “We expected much more than what actually happened on the ground. The final outcome was less than we expected.” The Egyptian government apparently planned for, and anticipated, a violent dispersal that would result in widespread killings of protesters without any serious effort to implement the safeguards they promised, including warnings and safe exits for protesters.

In a televised interview on August 31, 2013, Ibrahim confirmed that the Interior Ministry had estimated losses of “10 percent of the people,” acknowledging that the sit-in involved “more than 20,000” people and that “you will find thousands lost from their side.” Human Rights Watch used satellite photographs from one night of the sit-in, August 2, to estimate that there were approximately 85,000 protesters in the square that night; even assuming the actual attendance on August 14 was only 20,000, as Ibrahim postulated, a 10 percent casualty rate would still represent 2,000 fatalities.

The government ultimately opted to proceed with a violent forcible dispersal with full awareness that it would result in a very high death toll: one human rights defender told Human Rights Watch that, in a meeting with human rights organizations nine days before the dispersal, Interior Ministry officials revealed that the ministry’s anticipated a death toll of up to 3,500. In the days before the dispersal, two prominent newspapers cited security sources as indicating that the Interior Ministry’s dispersal plan anticipated several thousand casualties.

Egyptian and international mediation efforts to prevent a forcible dispersal by striking a political deal between Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the government took place throughout July and the beginning of August until Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawy announced their failure on August 7. The Interior Ministry, which had already drawn up a dispersal plan that had been approved by the National Defense Council and the cabinet and had received authorization to disperse from the Public Prosecutor based on citizen complaints that had been submitted, announced that it would proceed with dispersing the sit-ins. However, for weeks security officials promised that the dispersal would be gradual, starting with a cordon around the sit-in, warnings and a safe exit, in particular for women and children. None of the promised precautions, however, were taken.

However, these allegations fail to justify a forcible dispersal that resulted in the deaths of at least 817 people and amounted to collective punishment of the overwhelming majority of peaceful protesters. The mass killings of protesters were clearly disproportionate to any threat to the lives of local residents, security personnel or anyone else. To the extent that the government had a legitimate security interest in securing the sit-in site, it failed to carry out the dispersal in a way designed to minimize the risk to life, such as by ensuring safe exits. Lethal force should be used only when strictly unavoidable to protect an imminent threat to life—a standard that was far from met in this case.

For weeks in the run-up to the August 14 dispersals, Interior Minister Ibrahim, then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, then-Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawy, and other government officials stated that a forcible dispersal of the sit-ins was necessary. Officials maintained that the sit-ins disrupted residents’ lives, increased traffic congestion, provided a forum for sectarian incitement and terrorism, and a locale for demonstrators to detain and abuse opponents, including some to death. Human Rights Watch interviewed local residents who catalogued the serious effects the sit-in had on their everyday lives and reviewed evidence to suggest that some protesters detained and abused a number of persons they suspected of being infiltrators, possibly resulting in causalities.

On the same day as the Rab’a dispersal, August 14, security forces also dispersed a second smaller encampment of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in al-Nahda Square, near Cairo University in Giza in greater Cairo. The al-Nahda dispersal followed the same pattern as in Rab’a: at around 6 a.m. security forces demanded from loudspeakers that protesters leave the square, but then, almost immediately, resorted to firing at protesters, including those attempting to leave from the designated “safe” exit. Witnesses described how police fired at protesters both deliberately and indiscriminately, using teargas, birdshot and live ammunition. As some protesters took shelter inside the Engineering Faculty Building at nearby Cairo University, further violence ensued, when security officers fired at protesters barricaded in the building. The Ministry of Health set the death toll for the dispersal of the al-Nahda sit-in at 87.

Moreover, much of the shooting by police appears to have been indiscriminate, openly firing in the general direction of crowds of demonstrators instead of targeting armed protester gunmen who may have posed a serious threat. While Human Rights Watch cannot establish whether initial gunshots that day came from the security forces or armed protesters, interviews with over 100 witnesses, including local residents not sympathetic to the protesters, confirm that security forces resorted to widespread shooting from the first minutes of the dispersal, with APCs, bulldozers, ground forces, and rooftop snipers already in place.

Furthermore, police officers stood on top of APCs facing protesters and snipers operated from atop buildings in plain view for long periods of time, according to witnesses and dozens of videos that Human Rights Watch reviewed of the dispersal, unlikely behavior if there had been a significant threat of gunfire from protesters.

Extensive witness evidence, including from independent observers and local residents, establishes that the number of arms in the hands of protesters was limited. In Interior Minister Ibrahim’s August 14 press conference, in fact, he announced that security forces had seized 15 guns from the Rab’a sit-in.In an August 18 speech, then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said referencing the Rab’a dispersal that, “I am not saying everyone was firing, but it is more than enough if there are 20, 30, or 50 people firing live fire in a sit-in of that size.” If the figure of 15 guns is an accurate representation of the number of protester firearms in the square, it would indicate that few protesters were armed and further corroborates extensive evidence compiled by Human Rights Watch that police gunned down hundreds of unarmed demonstrators.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim alleged in a press conference on the night of the dispersal that the use of force by the police in both Rab’a and al-Nahda squares came in response to violence, including gunfire, from protesters. Human Rights Watch’s investigation found, in addition to hundreds of protesters who threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police once the assault began, demonstrators fired on police in at least a few instances. According to the official Forensic Medical Authority, eight police officers were killed during the Rab’a dispersal. However, the protesters’ violence in no way justified the deliberate and indiscriminate killings of protesters largely by police, in coordination with army forces.

In the early afternoon, after a brief mid-day break when gunfire was less intense, security forces intensified their fire as they made their final advance into the heart of the square. Security forces killed many protesters in these final hours, with no part of the square protected from widespread gunfire. By around 5:30 p.m., police had encircled remaining protesters around the Rab’a mosque and hospital, located near the center of the square, and then forcefully took control of the hospital. At this point, they ordered the majority of those remaining, including doctors, to exit, with instructions to leave corpses and the injured behind. As the last protesters left the square, fires broke out on the central stage, the field hospital, the mosque, and on the first floor of Rab’a hospital. Evidence strongly suggests that the police deliberately started these fires. Security forces detained over 800 protesters over the course of the day, some of whom they beat, tortured and, in some cases, summarily executed, six witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

Security forces advancing on the ground as well as snipers deployed on top of buildings intensified fire over the course of the morning, until indiscriminate gunfire became prevalent at the entrances around 8 a.m. By 9-10 a.m., though, security forces had become bogged down by rock-throwing protesters at each entrance, who had positioned themselves strategically to minimize exposure to direct fire, and slowed their advance.

Injured and dead protesters quickly filled the Rab’a hospital and makeshift facilities across the square, where volunteer doctors and other medical professionals, many themselves demonstrators, tended to serious injuries using basic donated equipment and medicine. Doctors in Rab’a hospital told Human Rights Watch that the vast majority of injuries they treated were gunshot wounds, many to the head and chest. Security forces from the morning fired at makeshift medical facilities and positioned snipers to fire on those who sought to enter or exit Rab’a hospital.

The dispersal of the Rab’a Square sit-in lasted 12 hours, roughly from sunrise to sunset. Police commenced their assault, in coordination with army forces, at around 6:30 a.m. by lobbing teargas canisters and shooting birdshot pellets at protesters located near the entrances to the square. They quickly, within minutes at some entrances, escalated to live fire, according to dozens of witnesses. Led by army bulldozers, police slowly advanced from each of the five major entrances to the square—two on Nasr Street, two on Tayaran Street, and one on Anwar al-Mufti Street behind the Rab’a al-Adawiya Mosque—in the early morning hours, destroying makeshift fences erected by protesters and other structures in their path. The advancing forces were supported by snipers deployed on top of adjacent government buildings. Many protesters retreated to the central area of the square for safety, but some remained on the peripheries to hurl stones, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at advancing forces.

The indiscriminate and deliberate use of lethal force resulted in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history. By way of contrast, credible estimates indicate that Chinese government forces killed between 400-800 protesters largely over a 24-hour span during the Tiananmen Massacre on June 3-4, 1989, and that Uzbek forces killed roughly similar numbers in one day during the 2005 Andijan Massacre.

While the government had declared and made public its plan to disperse the sit-ins by force, these warnings were insufficient. Government warnings in the media, and at Rab’a Square itself, in the days before August 14 failed to specify when the dispersal would take place. Warnings on the morning of the dispersal were not heard by many and did not provide protesters sufficient time to leave before security forces resorted to forcible dispersal. The vast majority of the demonstrators interviewed by Human Rights Watch in connection with this event said they did not hear the looped pre-recorded warnings security forces played over loudspeakers near at least two of the entrances to the sit-in minutes before opening fire. Security forces then besieged demonstrators for most of the day, attacking from each of the five main entrances to the square and leaving no safe exit until the end of the day, including for injured protesters in need of medical attention and those desperate to escape. Instead, in many cases security forces fired on those who sought to escape, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch researchers documented the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in and found that security forces opened fire on protesters using live ammunition, with hundreds killed by bullets to their heads, necks, and chests. Human Rights Watch also found that security forces used lethal force indiscriminately, with snipers and gunmen inside and alongside APCs firing their weaponry on large crowds of protesters. Dozens of witnesses also said they saw snipers fire from helicopters over Rab’a Square.

The gravest incident of mass protester killings occurred on August 14, when security forces crushed the major pro-Morsy sit-in in Rab’a al-Adawiya Square in the Nasr City district of eastern Cairo. Using armored personnel carriers (APCs), bulldozers, ground forces, and snipers, police and army personnel attacked the makeshift protest encampment, where demonstrators, including women and children, had been camped out for over 45 days, and opened fire on the protesters, killing at least 817 and likely more than 1,000.

Numerous government statements and accounts from government meetings indicate that high-ranking officials knew that the attacks would result in widespread killings of protesters; indeed, in the single largest incident, the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals, the government anticipated and planned for the deaths of several thousand protesters. One year later, security forces continue to deny any wrongdoing, and authorities have failed to hold a single police or army officer accountable for any of the unlawful killings.

Human Rights Watch’s one-year investigation into the conduct of security forces in responding to these demonstrations indicates that police and army forces systematically and intentionally used excessive lethal force in their policing, resulting in killings of protesters on a scale unprecedented in Egypt. The evidence we examined includes on-site investigations at each of the protest sites during or immediately after the attacks were underway, interviews with over 200 witnesses, including protesters, doctors, journalists, and local residents, and review of physical evidence, hours of video footage, and statements by public officials. On this basis, Human Rights Watch concludes that the killings not only constituted serious violations of international human rights law, but likely amounted to crimes against humanity, given both their widespread and systematic nature and the evidence suggesting the killings were part of a policy to attack unarmed persons on political grounds. While there is also evidence that some protesters used firearms during several of these demonstrations, Human Rights Watch was able to confirm their use in only a few instances, which do not justify the grossly disproportionate and premeditated lethal attacks on overwhelmingly peaceful protesters.

Over the course of the following two months, Muslim Brotherhood supporters organized two large sit-ins in Cairo and smaller protests across Egypt to denounce the military takeover and demand the reinstatement of Morsy. In response, police and army forces repeatedly opened fire on demonstrators, killing over 1,150, most of them in five separate incidents of mass protester killings.

In July and August 2013, many of Egypt’s public squares and streets were awash in blood. On July 3, 2013, the military deposed Mohamed Morsy, Egypt’s first elected civilian president and a high-ranking member of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the heels of massive popular protests against Morsy calling for early presidential elections.

Key Recommendations

To the Egyptian Government

Order security forces to end unlawful, excessive use of force and to act in accordance with international human rights law and standards on the use of force in policing demonstrations.

Make public the findings and recommendations of the post-June 30 fact-finding commission, in addition to those of the 2011 and 2012 fact-finding commissions.

To the Public Prosecutor

Thoroughly and impartially investigate the unlawful use of force by security forces for protester killings since June 30, 2013, and prosecute those, including in the chain of command, against whom there is evidence of criminal responsibility.

Immediately release any people still detained without charge following demonstrations in July and August 2013, or immediately charge them with specific cognizable criminal offences followed within a reasonable timeframe by a fair trial.

To UN Member States

Establish through the UN Human Rights Council an international commission of inquiry to investigate all human rights violations resulting from the mass killings of protesters since June 30, 2013. The inquiry should be mandated to establish the facts, identify those responsible with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators of violations are held accountable, as well as collect and conserve information related to abuses for future use by credible judicial institutions. Ensure that the mandate is sufficiently broad to cover past and future acts and other human rights abuses committed by Egyptian security forces, as well as violence by protesters.

Suspend all sales and provision of security-related items and assistance to Egypt until the government adopts measures to end serious human rights violations, such as those related to suppression of largely peaceful demonstrations, and to holding rights violators accountable.

Under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national laws, investigate and prosecute those implicated in serious crimes under international law committed in Egypt in July-August 2013.

Methodology

This report focuses on several of the most significant incidents of state violence against demonstrators in July-August 2013. The events documented in this report are not an exhaustive list of all killings that took place during this period; the report, in particular, does not investigate bloody acts of violence that took place between pro-Morsy and pro-government supporters throughout this period. It also does not explore in depth other rights violations, including mass arrests of Morsy supporters.

This report is based on research carried out largely in Cairo from July 2013 to July 2014. Human Rights Watch interviewed over 200 victims and their family members, witnesses, doctors, journalists, and lawyers. Researchers largely conducted interviews in two periods: one in the days immediately following the events in July-August 2013 and a second one six months later in January-February 2014. The report also makes use of official statements from government officials.

In some cases, Human Rights Watch was able to examine television and video footage of specific incidents documented in this report, which it has preserved on file. Before inclusion in this report, Human Rights Watch determined that all video footage it referenced was authentic. It did so through a variety of means, including carefully studying contextual clues, reviewing footage alongside independent witnesses, and, in some cases, interviewing the videographer him/herself.

The shrinking space for free association, expression, and assembly, increasing restrictions on the work of human rights organizations, including arrests of rights defenders, and highly polarized political context in Egypt imposed significant obstacles on the researchers and authors of this report, including difficulty accessing protest sites, morgues, and hospitals and constant security threats in conducting victim interviews.

Human Rights Watch researchers visited hospitals on the same day as the July 5 shootings at the Republican Guard headquarters and visited the Rab’a field hospital at the time of the July 27 Manassa Memorial mass killing and in the final hours of the August 14 Rab’a dispersal. A Human Rights Watch researcher was also on site for much of the Rab’a dispersal itself.

For the investigation of the shootings at the Republican Guard headquarters on July 5, Human Rights Watch visited Taa’min al-Saahi, the government hospital where many injured and dead protesters were taken, and interviewed seven witnesses, including demonstrators, as well as an independent journalist on the scene, a local resident, and relatives of the deceased protesters.

With regards to the July 8 mass killings at the Republican Guard headquarters, Human Rights Watch spoke to 24 witnesses, including protesters and neighborhood residents, and interviewed seven doctors. Human Rights Watch also visited the site of the incident, four hospitals where the dead and injured were taken, and Cairo’s main morgue.

For the July 27 killing of protesters outside the Manassa Memorial, Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 witnesses to the violence, including at field hospitals as the attacks were taking place.

In documenting the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in on August 14, Human Rights Watch staff interviewed 122 witnesses, including 69 protesters, 20 journalists, 20 medics, 3 lawyers, and 10 local residents, including some fleeing the dispersal on August 14 and in hospitals and morgues in the surrounding area in subsequent days.

In investigating the August 14 al-Nahda dispersal, Human Rights Watch interviewed ten witnesses present during the dispersal of the sit-in, and spoke to four administrators of hospitals who received casualties that day. Human Rights Watch also interviewed five demonstrators and two doctors who treated wounded from a nearby August 14 protest in Mustafa Mahmoud Square.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 22 witnesses to the August 16 violence in Ramses Square, including 12 journalists, 6 doctors, 2 protesters, and a senior police officer and a sniper at the Azbakiya police station who were present during the clashes.

All interviews were conducted with the full consent of those being interviewed and all of the interviewees were told how Human Rights Watch would use the information provided. The vast majority of interviews were conducted in Arabic at different locations in and around Cairo. Human Rights Watch is withholding names of many witnesses for their security.

Human Rights Watch also met with several members of the June 30 fact-finding commission and Nasser Amin, lead author of the report on the Rab’a dispersal prepared by the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR).

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Interior Ministry, Office of the Public Prosecutor, Defense Ministry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Mission in New York on June 12, 2014 soliciting the Egyptian government’s perspectives on the issues covered in this report. Human Rights Watch sent follow-up letters on July 8, 2014. The letters laid out preliminary findings and requested answers to specific questions and information not available to Human Rights Watch, including details on officers killed by armed demonstrators and instructions given to security forces regarding the use of live ammunition. The letters were sent by post, e-mail, and fax and receipt was confirmed. While Foreign Ministry officials responded by indicating that they are in touch with other ministries regarding Human Rights Watch’s request, as of August 1, 2014, Human Rights had not received responses to its questions. Copies of the letters are included in the appendix of this report.

In establishing the number of casualties for each incident of mass killings of protesters outside of the Rab’a dispersal, Human Rights Watch relied on official figures, generally from the Forensic Medical Authority (FMA), a part of Egypt’s Health Ministry. Because the FMA only includes in its count bodies which it has received and processed at official morgues, it may undercount the actual number of fatalities. These figures, therefore, should be considered lower-bound estimates.

For the Rab’a dispersal, Human Rights Watch arrived at its own casualty figure, which exceeds the FMA tally, by cross-checking the official register with figures compiled by the quasi-official National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) and documentation conducted by Human Rights Watch researchers and Egyptian human rights lawyers. Human Rights Watch further reviewed lists of additional dead compiled by survivors and other civil society organizations.

I. Background

In January 2011, Egyptians took to the streets protesting police brutality and demanding bread, freedom, and social justice. Although the 18-day uprising succeeded in toppling President Hosni Mubarak, human rights violations remained a serious concern under successive regimes—the Supreme Council for the Armed Forces (SCAF) from February 2011-June 2012 and Mohamed Morsy from June 2012-June 2013. Since the ouster of Morsy on July 3, 2013, under both the military backed interim government which took power then and the government headed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi which took power in June 2014, Egypt has experienced a human rights crisis as dire as in any other period in the country’s modern history, including mass killings of protesters, large-scale death sentences, and mass arrests of the political opposition.[1]

Mass Killings of Protesters

Since January 2011, Egyptian security forces repeatedly used excessive lethal force to disperse protests, killing well over 2,000 protesters. Between January 25 and February 11, 2011, during the course of the 18-days of mass protests across Egypt calling for the end of the Mubarak government, police killed at least 846 demonstrators in squares and near police stations in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and other cities. [2]

Under the 18-month rule of the SCAF, new incidents of violent dispersals of protest took place, including the killings of 27 unarmed Coptic Christian protesters outside the government television building known as Maspero in October 2011, and 51 protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street in November 2011. [3] Under Mohamed Morsy, police killed 46 protesters outside the Port Said prison over three days in January 2013. [4]

The use of excessive force escalated significantly with the overthrow of Morsy in July 2013 as the military and security forces embarked on a campaign of intense and extensive repression against the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as non-Islamist critics of the new government. This report focuses on the mass killings of July and August 2013. During the same period, Egypt experienced bloody acts of communal violence that often pitted pro-Morsy supporters against supporters of the interim government and sectarian attacks against Coptic Christians. [5] Security forces subsequently have continued to use excessive lethal force, including in dispersing pro-Morsy marches on October 6, leading to at least 57 deaths, [6] and on the third anniversary of January 25, 2014, killing at least 64 protesters across Egypt. [7]

Mass Arrests

Under President Morsy, police arrested at least 800 protesters at various demonstrations across Egypt. [8] In one incident outside the presidential palace in December 2012, credible accounts victims and witnesses gave to Human Rights Watch indicate that supporters of the president subjected dozens of persons to abuse. Security forces failed to intervene to protect the peaceful sit-in by anti-Morsy protesters and stop the violence by both pro- and anti-Morsy demonstrators. [9]

Following the military’s ouster of Morsy in early July, an intense campaign of arrest and detention largely focused on members and sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the government’s own figures, security forces have detained at least 22,000 people since July. [10] WikiThawra, an initiative run by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, has determined that authorities have arrested or indicted over 41,000 since July 3, 2013. [11] Many of those detained were rounded up solely as a result of their peaceful exercise of the rights to peaceful assembly, free association, and free expression or membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, including simply displaying signs commemorating the Rab’a massacre. [12]

Military officials held Morsy along with nine senior aides in secret military detention for months.[13] Police also arrested the majority of the high-level and much of the mid-level leadership both of the Muslim Brotherhood and of its political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, across the country, including figures exclusively involved in politics and communications.[14]

Prosecutors have ordered the pretrial detention of most of those arrested pending investigation on a range of cut-and-paste charges, including incitement or participation in violence, “thuggery,” vandalism, membership in a banned or terrorist organization, and illegal public assembly.Prosecutors in dozens of cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch have renewed pre-trial detention orders on the basis of little evidence that would warrant prosecution, effectively detaining them arbitrarily for months on end. Mounting reports indicate that scores of detainees have faced torture and ill-treatment in detention.[15] In one incident on August 18, 2013, four days after the Rab’a and al-Nahda dispersals, Egyptian police outside the Abu Zaabel prison in Cairo lobbed teargas canisters into the back of a cramped police truck, in which 45 prisoners had been huddled together for six hours in temperatures bordering 40C, resulting in the deaths of 37 men.[16]

Many of the trials reviewed by Human Rights Watch have been grossly unfair and riddled with serious due process violations, violating both Egyptian law and international standards. These trials, including mass trials involving hundreds of people in a single case, failed to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, yet resulted in lengthy sentences or even the death penalty, which Human Rights Watch opposes in all circumstances. Some cases have resulted in acquittals. A criminal court in Minya recommended the death penalty for over 1,200 people in preliminary verdicts in two separate cases in March and April 2014 without allowing defendants the right to mount a meaningful defense or even assess whether they had counsel or were present in the courtroom, falling far short of ascertaining their guilt individually.[17] Many of these sentences were commuted in the final verdict, some resulting in lengthy prison terms and others in acquittals.[18]

Restrictions on Freedom of Expression, Assembly, and Association

Following the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak, there was scope for government critics to express their views publicly in privately-owned media. During President Morsy’s year in office, however, prosecutions resumed of journalists and political activists on charges of “insulting” the president or other officials and institutions and “spreading false information,” using Mubarak-era penal code provisions.[19] After July 2013, the military-backed government closed down all TV stations affiliated with or sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as other Islamist stations.[20] Egypt has particularly targeted Doha-based Al Jazeera, closing its Egypt offices, and arresting many of its reporters. Three Al Jazeera English journalists, Mohamed Fahmy, Peter Greste, and Baher Mohamed, received multi-year prison sentences after a trial in which prosecutors failed to present any credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing.[21]

The government issued a new law in November that severely restricts peaceful demonstrations and has continued to use penal code provisions that criminalize speech offenses to imprison journalists and activists. The authorities have imprisoned prominent activists like the co-founder of the April 6 Youth Movement Ahmed Maher, April 6 leader Mohamed Adel, human rights defenders Mahienoor al-Masry and Yara Sallam, and bloggers Ahmed Douma and Alaa Abdel Fattah under the new protest law, along with scores of other activists and government critics. Maher, Douma, and Adel received three-year prison sentences in December 2013.[22] Al-Masry was given a two-year sentence in May 2014.[23] Abdel Fattah was sentenced to 15-years in prison in June 2014.[24] Sallam was detained and facing trial at the time of writing.[25] Authorities also arrested some of the few activists who openly challenged the draft constitution proposed by the military-backed government or called for a “no” vote in the January 2014 constitutional referendum.[26]

In January, the government put a travel ban on academic and former Member of Parliament Amr Hamzawy. Prosecutors charged Hamzawy with “insulting the judiciary” based on a tweet that deemed a particular court case to be politicized. The same month authorities charged another prominent academic, Emad Shahin, with conspiring with foreign organizations to harm national security. Both Hamzawy and Shahin had been critical of some of President Morsy’s policies, but also criticized the heavy repression that followed his ouster. [27]

On December 25, 2013 the government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Since July 3, 2013, authorities have also frozen the assets of senior leaders and taken control of over 1,000 NGOs linked to the Brotherhood and dozens of Brotherhood-affiliated schools.[28] The government has yet to put forward an evidentiary basis for this designation and the related sanctions.

On April 28, 2014, the Court of Urgent Matters banned the activities of the April 6 Youth Movement, which led many of the mass protests during the 2011 uprising, and ordered the authorities to shut down its headquarters. The court ruled that the group was “co-operating with foreign states, including the US, to cut US aid, possessing weapons, protesting and spreading chaos in the country,” and had “distorted Egypt’s image.”[29]

On December 19, 2013, just after midnight, security forces raided the Cairo office of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a prominent rights group, and detained two staff members and four volunteers, subjecting them to ill-treatment before releasing five of the group the next morning. The sixth, the above-mentioned Mohamed Adel, was sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly violating the assembly law.[30] On May 22, 2014, police raided the same group’s Alexandria office, briefly arresting at least 15 activists and lawyers and subjecting them to ill-treatment.[31]

II. The Dispersals at Rab’a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda Squares

Both in the lead-up to the June 30, 2013 anti-government protests called for by the protest group Tamarod and in the aftermath of the military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsy on July 3, 2013, thousands of Egyptians staged demonstrations throughout Egypt to show support for Morsy. Located just kilometers away from the Presidential Palace, Rab’a al-Adawiya Mosque in the Nasr City neighborhood of eastern Cairo was transformed after July 3 into the epicenter of their protest, as organizers declared an open-ended sit-in until the military resorted Morsy to the presidency. Brotherhood supporters also maintained a second smaller encampment in al-Nahda Square in Giza in greater Cairo.

Human Rights Watch visited the two protest sites, both of which were densely populated with women and children as well as men, on several occasions prior to the dispersals. Using aerial photos, Human Rights Watch calculated that there were approximately 85,000 protesters at the Rab’a sit-in alone on August 2.[32] One video shows aerial footage of the sit-in that evening.[33]

From the first days of the sit-ins, the government raised the possibility of dispersal, citing the need to halt the detention and abuse of non-Brotherhood members that they alleged was taking place within the sit-ins, the disruption of traffic and disturbance to residents of the sit-in areas, and the incitement and sectarianism of Brotherhood leaders. On July 31, citing what it called a popular mandate to “fight violence and terrorism,” the Egyptian cabinet authorized the interior minister to “take all necessary measures to face these dangers and put an end to them within the framework of the constitution and the law.”[34] In the days leading up to the dispersal, security officials promised a gradual dispersal, which would include warnings and a safe exit.[35]

These precautions were not taken. On August 14, authorities used deliberate and indiscriminate lethal force to disperse the two sit-ins, where protesters had remained encamped for 45 days, resulting in one of the most bloody incidents of mass unlawful killings of largely peaceful protesters in recent history.[36] While Egyptian security forces have repeatedly since 2011 used excessive force to respond to demonstrations, the August 14 dispersals were unprecedented in the scale of sheer brutality.

By the end of that day, the police in concert with the army had killed at least 904 people during the dispersals, at least 817 from Rab’a and 87 from al-Nahda, including women and children. In September, Prime Minister al-Beblawy told the Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm that the death toll from the Rab’a and al-Nahda square dispersals on August 14 was “close to 1,000.” [37] Ten members of the security forces were also killed—eight in Rab’a and two in Nahda. Although some protesters were armed and shot at the police, Human Rights Watch concluded that they were few in numbers based on 132 interviews with protesters, local residents, medics, and journalists from both incidents, and review of hours of video footage.

Following its year-long investigation, Human Rights Watch has further concluded that the government used disproportionate force, failed to take measures to minimize loss of life, and knowingly opened fire on unarmed protesters with live ammunition, therein committing serious violations of international human rights laws. The systematic and widespread nature of the deliberate and indiscriminate killings, coupled with evidence indicating that the government anticipated and planned to engage in mass unlawful killings, i.e. murder, and that they fit into a consistent pattern of protester killings, indicate that the violations likely amount to crimes against humanity. One year later, authorities have made no effort to investigate or otherwise hold police and army officers and other officials accountable for their actions.

Forcible Dispersal of the Rab’a Sit-in

Overview

Rab’a al-Adawiya square lies at the intersection of Nasr Street, a major artery connecting downtown Cairo to its international airport, and Tayaran Street in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City. Demonstrators occupied the roughly one kilometer stretch of road on Nasr Street, stretching from Yousif Abbas Street in the west to Tiba Mall in the east, as well as a roughly half-kilometer stretch of Tayaran Street and parts of intersecting side streets. The square is named after the mosque located in the center of the square and is surrounded by residential and government buildings, including a military base in the northeast quadrant of the square, the Traffic Directorate building of the Interior Ministry on the east side of Nasr Street, and a Defense Ministry building on the southwest corner of the square.

The dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in—a 12-hour assault lasting from sunrise to sunset—marked the single bloodiest event in the government’s brutal crackdown on dissent since the July 3 ouster of Morsy. Police and army forces attacked the protest encampment at each of its five major entrances—two entrances on Nasr Street, two on Tayaran Street, and one on Anwar al-Mufti Street—with APCs and bulldozers and with government snipers on the tops of surrounding buildings. Thirty-one witnesses also said they saw security forces fire teargas, birdshot, or live ammunition from helicopters hovering over the square. Security forces besieged demonstrators, leaving them without access to safe exit from the first minutes of the dispersal until the very end of the day, including for severely injured protesters in need of urgent medical attention and men, women, and children desperate to escape the violence. [38]

Security forces failed to provide sufficient warning in advance of the dispersal. Warnings in the days ahead did not specify a date and time during which the dispersal would take place. Minutes before opening fire early on the morning of August 14, security forces played pre-recorded loops, calling on protesters to leave and identifying a safe exit, over loudspeakers near at least two of the entrances to the square. The vast majority of the over 100 witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, however, said they did not hear the warning until after forces had opened fire. Many of those in the square only came to know of the dispersal after being awoken by other demonstrators or by the sound and smell of teargas and gunfire at the entrances to the square.

Police commenced their assault by lobbing teargas canisters and using other less than lethal forms of riot control against protesters located near the entrances to the square, but they quickly, within minutes in places, escalated to live fire. Brotherhood organizers had established security committees at the entrances, which had erected makeshift fences to slow the approach of forces. Police forces, though, destroyed the makeshift fences and other structures in their path. Many protesters took cover in the central area of the square, which remained relatively safe, except for teargas, until the late morning. The situation on side streets greatly varied from location to location—some, such as Sibawayh al-Masry Street, remained relatively safe for most of the day—but could only be accessed after braving gunfire from one of the five major entrances.

Advancing forces and snipers on top of buildings intensified fire over the course of the morning, at times firing continuously for minutes at a time without pause. The main entrance to the Rab’a hospital, which protesters referred to as “Sniper Alley,” was the target of sniper fire for much of the day, posing serious risk to those seeking medical attention. Many of the protesters who did not take cover and stayed at the peripheries joined the protester security committees and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at advancing forces and, in some cases, carried sticks and clubs. Some protesters also carried firearms and shot at the police; the number of armed men, though, was limited, according to the accounts of witnesses. By around 9-10 a.m., these makeshift defense strategies, concentrated at strategic points at the entrances, succeeded in temporarily slowing the advance of forces.

After a brief mid-day period when clashes diminished, security forces, in coordination with snipers, intensified their fire and made their final advance into the heart of the square. Many were killed in these final hours, with no part of the square protected from prevalent gunfire. Security forces opened fire at structures that had turned into makeshift medical facilities, including Rab’a hospital, the field hospital, and the courtyard adjacent to Rab’a mosque. By around 5:30 p.m., police had encircled remaining protesters around Rab’a mosque and hospital, eventually allowing the majority of those remaining to exit, with instructions to leave corpses and the injured behind. As the last protesters left the square, the central stage, field hospital, mosque, and first floor of the hospital were set ablaze, likely by security forces. Police detained over 800 protesters over the course of the day, some of whom they beat, tortured, and, in several cases, summarily executed.

The operation involved close cooperation between the police and the army. The police, consisting of both the Central Security Forces (CSF), Egypt’s riot police, and the Special Forces (ESF), who usually are reserved for specialized operations, took the lead role during the dispersal and appear to be responsible for most of the lethal force used. While difficult to distinguish between the CSF and ESF given the similar armament both forces wore during the dispersal, Interior Minister Ibrahim has said that ESF led the final push into Rab’a Square. The army also played an important supporting role. Army forces secured the entrances, inhibiting protesters from entering and exiting, operated the bulldozers that cleared the way for police to advance, operated some helicopters, including Apaches, which flew over the square, and opened a military base adjacent to Rab’a Square to snipers.

Nasr Street, Tiba Mall (East Entrance)

The dispersal commenced from the east with the arrival of security forces on Nasr Street near Tiba Mall and on Anwar al-Mufti Street, a parallel street behind Tiba Mall, at around 6:15-6:30 a.m. Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 witnesses near the Tiba Mall entrance to Rab’a Square and none heard any warning or siren before the dispersal began.

Many of these witnesses came to know that security forces were forcibly dispersing protesters only when the operation was already underway. Asma Shehata, a young protester, told Human Rights Watch that she had been walking to her parked car near Tiba Mall when she suddenly saw gas falling around her.[39] A leader of the group Youth Against the Coup said he awoke from the tent he had sleeping in a little after 6 a.m. upon hearing fire all around him and immediately ran towards the center of the square.[40]

Security forces began their assault by lobbing teargas canisters from Anwar al-Mufti Street onto Nasr Street and by firing from positions on top of the Military Intelligence building in the adjacent army base, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. A 19-year-old videographer told Human Rights Watch that he first noticed snipers in the base at 2 or 3 a.m. that morning, fortifying their defenses. The snipers began firing from the first minutes of the dispersal.[41]

Four protesters recounted to Human Rights Watch witnessing fire from the army base strike a member of Ultras Nahdawy, a youth group supportive of Morsy.[42] A high school student who had been sleeping near Tiba Mall described to Human Rights Watch how he saw an officer from the base “spot [name redacted] and hit him in the leg with a teargas canister,” which caused him to fall.[43]

Snipers deployed on top of the base supported security forces advancing west towards the center of the square on Nasr Street from near Tiba Mall. According to witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, forces moved in formations: first, a large Caterpillar bulldozer, equipped with metal tank tracks instead of wheels, would clear the path, “plowing through anything in its way,”[44] including sandbags and makeshift rock walls set up by demonstrators to slow the advance. APCs manned by the ESF flanked the bulldozer. CSF police trucks followed behind, while army forces secured the periphery and blocked new protesters from entering the square.

Members of the Brotherhood security committee in charge of the Tiba Mall entrance interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they hid behind sandbags and used a variety of strategies to try to slow the advance.[45] According to witnesses, many protesters threw rocks and later Molotov cocktails at approaching security forces. Some burned tires, whereas others used fireworks in order to intimidate forces as they advanced.[46]

Advancing forces and snipers acting in tandem very quickly resorted to using birdshot and live fire, witnesses said. According to the high school student who had witnessed the incident, the same member of the Ultras Nahdawy was hit at approximately 6:30 a.m. by a live bullet in the pelvis, though he did not see where the fire came from. [47] Injured protester Mohamed Ali told Human Rights Watch on August 14, as he lay with his right leg bloodied and bandaged in the Rab’a hospital, that he had been standing next to his tent, towards the front of Nasr Street, when police moved in and shot him in his right leg above the knee. [48]

A father of three and member of one of the Brotherhood security committees in charge of protecting the field hospital on Nasr Street west of Tiba Mall described hearing live fire “in rapid succession” minutes after seeing teargas.[49] Shehata recalled hearing “a quick succession of bullets” not more than 10 minutes after first seeing teargas.[50]

One man, who sought to make his way to the field hospital in the center of the square, described how the snipers in the army base began to shoot indiscriminately at protesters shortly after gunfire began:

I saw one or two officers on top of the military intelligence building on the northern side of Nasr Street, opposite the Tiba Mall. We call it Unit 75. Another one or two were standing on top of the interior ministry traffic building on the same side of Nasr Street as Tiba Mall. They were like snipers but they were firing randomly. They were hiding behind sandbags on top of the building. They’d stand up to shoot then hide again. They kept doing this: shoot, then hide.[51]

A video reviewed by Human Rights Watch shows a female protester shot in the neck while holding a handheld video camera in the morning on eastern Nasr Street.[52]

Another witness, a businessman participating in the sit-in, said:

They immediately fired teargas and live fire. It was so intense, I can’t even describe it; it was not like the other times before [referring to prior mass killings], one or two at a time. It was raining bullets. I smelled the gas and immediately saw people being hit and falling down around me. I have no idea how many people were hit. We didn’t hear any warnings, nothing. It was like hell.[53]

Habiba Abd al-Aziz, a 26-year-old staff reporter for Xpress, a sister publication of the UAE-based Gulf News, was one of those who fell as forces advanced from Tiba Mall. At 7:33 a.m. Abd al-Aziz sent a text message to her mother to tell her that she was heading to the front lines from the center of the square “in a little while.”[54] She had brought her camera with her to cover the advance, two witnesses hold Human Rights Watch. A friend of Habiba told Human Rights Watch, “Police were shooting left and right...Habiba was holding a camera and a tripod. I told her to move. She wasn’t listening and wouldn’t move. I saw her fall.”[55] A journalist who witnessed the shooting also recounted that Abd al-Aziz had been shot after rushing to the front lines in her capacity as a journalist to document the clashes.[56] Abd al-Aziz died as a result of her injuries. Her mother messaged her at 12:46 p.m. to say, “Habiba, please reassure me. I’ve called thousands of times. Please, my darling, I’m worried sick. Tell me how you are.”[57]

Statements from the Interior Ministry on the morning of August 14 maintaining that no bullets had yet been fired and thereafter insisting there were no casualties on the eastern side of Nasr Street until security forces had arrived at the center of square, are inconsistent with Human Rights Watch’s documentation.[58]

Outflanked, pro-Morsy protesters at the front lines gradually retreated backwards towards the center of the square. As forces advanced down Nasr Street, they destroyed structures in their path, including an iconic three-story wooden tent demonstrators had built on the east side of the square.[59] A young father from Alexandria who managed to enter Rab’a Square through side roads shortly after the dispersal began found himself “the only one” behind the advancing forces on Nasr Street. He told Human Rights Watch that the bulldozer had “destroyed everything” and that CSF officers, who had advanced behind the ESF, were rummaging through half-destroyed tents in search of valuables to steal.[60]

By around 10 a.m., forces had advanced to the Traffic Directorate building, an Interior Ministry building adjacent to the Rab’a field hospital and mosque. One protester, who had gone inside a building off Nasr Street at around 8:30 a.m. to escape the teargas, described to Human Rights Watch the scene when she went out at around 10 a.m.:

I went out, and it was the shock of my life. They were no tents. They were all burned. When I went in, the street was full of tents. The square had become a piece of coal.[61]

Pro-Morsy protesters, though, regrouped. Concentrating several hundred protesters near the Traffic Directorate building, demonstrators built makeshift fences to hold back the advance of forces and fought back with rocks and Molotov cocktails.[62] One protester told Human Rights Watch that he also saw at least one shotgun with birdshot among the demonstrators. He described the makeshift strategy they employed, which contributed to keeping security forces from advancing for several hours:

APCs continued to hit continuously, and forces approached with birdshot. We took pots for protection from the cooking area…found fridges for defense…and would approach from the side of Nasr Street, throw rocks, and retreat…. They didn’t know how to get through us…. Things continued back and forth like this.[63]

Egyptian freelance journalist Maged Atef told Human Rights Watch that around mid-day he saw a police officer, who had come on foot with a microphone to tell protesters to leave the central part of Rab’a Square, shot on the eastern side of Nasr Street.[64] The National Council for Human Rights report on Rab’a highlights this event, which the report author said was largely based on an interview with Atef, and identifies it as a main factor behind the escalation of shooting by security forces in the late morning period in this area.[65]

Human Rights Watch cannot establish precisely when the shooting took place.

There did, however, appear to be intensification of shooting in the late morning, with many protesters falling. One protester, a college student studying engineering, told Human Rights Watch that she decided to move from the center of the square to near the Traffic Directorate building at around 10:30 a.m. to assist those on the front lines by breaking pavement to make rocks to use against advancing forces. While doing so, she met Warda Mustafa, whose daughters she knew, around 11:15 a.m. She recounted to Human Rights Watch what happened next:

I was saying goodbye to her, and [the guys] told us to get down. Forces were shooting low, and Warda was not sitting, but lying down. Suddenly, around her head cover, her brains fell out in front of me.[69]

Another protester, who also saw Mustafa fall, provided a similar account to Human Rights Watch.[70] Mustafa eventually succumbed to her injuries, dying on August 18, according to the death certificate reviewed by Human Rights Watch.[71]

Shortly thereafter, protesters surged forward in an effort to push back security forces. Ahmed Ammar, a civil engineer and a member of the Rab’a field hospital security committee, encouraged the group to keep up their resistance, Ammar’s wife Yasmeen Abdel Fattah and three protesters who were on the front lines with Ammar told Human Right Watch.[72] A 17-year-old, who had been using a slingshot to repel forces and considered Ammar a fatherly figure, described the scene that ensued:

Ahmed stood up, went past the gates [we had erected], put up his arms, and said, ‘We are peaceful. There is nothing here’. Then, an Interior Ministry officer—who was wearing black, Special Forces, and carrying a rifle—loaded his gun to fire. I stood to try to push Ahmed out of the way. I was only a step away, but I couldn’t move. I could only call his name. The officer got him in the chest with four bullets, and he fell.[73]

Two other witnesses provided corroborating accounts of Ammar’s fall.[74] He died immediately, leaving behind his wife and three children between one and ten years old.[75]

In the early afternoon, some shooting from snipers deployed on top of buildings and firing of teargas continued, but security forces temporarily halted their advance on Nasr Street. The de-escalation may have in part resulted from some police having to move back to the Tiba Mall entrance to prevent additional pro-Morsy supporters from entering the sit-in.

However, at around 3 p.m. the security forces made a final push to reach the center of the square. A chemist, who witnessed events from the entrance to the Traffic Directorate building, described the intensity of the fire he saw then:

I stood by the building…it was 2:50 or 2:55 p.m…. Then suddenly I saw intense fire from all directions. For ten minutes, there was no one on the street. Then I saw a woman and man walking towards the security forces. They were the only people on the ground. Then I heard bullets and saw the woman on the ground. The man tried to carry her and also took a bullet and fell. We were not able to get their bodies because of the bulldozer.[76]

Another protester described seeing the security forces shooting wildly shortly thereafter:

One of the APCs turned very fast, so that it faced us with its side. When that APC turned and fired, I ducked and started to run. I saw the head of a guy next to me explode. We didn’t have weapons. All we had were stones. I saw [snipers in] the helicopters firing on people; once or twice I saw the door of the helicopter open, someone fire, then the door close.[77]

In order to avoid the approaching APCs, many of the protesters retreated to the side road between the Traffic Directorate building and the Rab’a field hospital, some hiding in tents or behind sandbags. Additional snipers, though, soon began firing from on top of the Traffic Directorate and surrounding buildings. According to a protester who had been hiding in a tent, the bullets entered tents and other previously secured areas, forcing the remaining protesters to head into the central square.[78] Nearly 11 hours after beginning their advance, forces arrived in the center of Rab’a Square from the east.

Anwar al-Mufti Street (Parallel to East Nasr Street, Behind Tiba Mall )

Running parallel to the eastern stretch of Nasr Street, Anwar al-Mufti Street stands as a key entry point to the central section of Rab’a Square. The street, lined by cafes and shops, runs behind Tiba Mall and the Traffic Directorate building, connecting to Nasr Street between the Traffic Directorate and central Rab’a Square, and extends to the Rab’a hospital and Tayaran Street. As a result of its strategic significance, Brotherhood demonstrators established several security checkpoints on the street.

Security forces entered Anwar al-Mufti Street from Abbas Akkad Street, a street that runs perpendicular to Nasr Street, around 6 a.m. As it was a narrower street without as many protester tents, APCs, not bulldozers, led the advance. An engineering student who was positioned at the second security checkpoint on Anwar al-Mufti Street told Human Rights Watch that at around 6:20 a.m., in the first minutes of the dispersal, security forces lobbed about a dozen teargas canisters onto Nasr Street and at demonstrators on the front lines of Anwar al-Mufti Street.[79] One local resident, who lives a few blocks from Anwar al-Mufti resident, said that she felt teargas in her home by 6:45 a.m.[80]

Within 10-15 minutes, security forces began to fire birdshot and live ammunition, according to eleven demonstrators on the front lines interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch reviewed footage depicting heavy gunfire on Anwar al-Mufti in the early morning and interviewed the videographer who said that he recorded the scene from behind a sandbag.[81] Two 19-year-old protesters, who lived in the area and arrived on the scene at 7 a.m. upon hearing that the dispersal had commenced, described seeing live fire immediately upon arriving on Anwar al-Mufti Street.[82]

A 26-year-old protester said that just before 7 a.m. he was on Anwar al-Mufti Street when the police started moving in with teargas:

We heard the sound of gunshots straight away with the teargas. I tried to hide because the shooting was everywhere. While I was there, I saw three people being shot and falling to the ground, [including] one shot in the eye and one in the side.[83]

A 21-year-old from the Manufiya Province told Human Rights Watch about how he got injured in the midst of this early fire:

I was between two tents helping people to deal with teargas. Fire was continuous. One second I felt an odd feeling in my leg, then pain in my pelvis. I was on Anwar al-Mufti [Street] turning to pick up a Pepsi bottle [used to mitigate effects of gas] and suddenly felt pain. We all fell, six of us, in a matter of seconds… I put my hand on my chest and it was hot… I couldn’t feel my chest at all. The bullet had come from the back… I saw blood on my hand and was heavily bleeding… The bullet came close to my heart. [84]

The APCs attempted to advance, but were unable to penetrate rows of cars and buses that protesters had lined up, witnesses said. One protester observed an APC attempt to push past at 8:30 a.m., but get a flat tire driving over nails protesters had set up, and back up amidst a hailstorm of rocks thrown by protesters.[85] Protesters on Anwar al-Mufti Street later also used Molotov cocktails, according to a 24-year-old chemist who was among the demonstrators.[86] One demonstrator also said he noticed several demonstrators with guns in a building off Anwar al-Mufti in the late morning.[87]

Gunfire intensified in the mid-morning, so strongly, according to one protester, that it penetrated the sandbags protesters had been crouched behind.[88] A 24-year-old from Giza told Human Rights Watch that he saw machine gun fire coming from the APCs and saw five people fall in the 15 minutes he spent on Anwar al-Mufti Street that morning.[89] A 21-year-old pharmaceutical studies student whom security forces had detained and were holding in the middle of the Anwar al-Mufti Street from around 8 to 11 a.m. recounted seeing forces fire a gun on top of an APC in the mid-morning. He described what happened as the fire approached him at around 10-10:30 a.m.:

The shots approached us, even though our hands were up. The person next to me took a bullet in his head. He asked for permission to enter the square and die there and [the police] allowed him to do so… I took a birdshot pellet in my lip, which opened it up.[90]

Fifteen protesters told Human Rights Watch that snipers positioned on top of the Traffic Directorate building supported the approaching forces. While the snipers largely directed fire at the western part of Anwar Al-Mufti Street, near the entrance to Rab’a hospital, they also supported forces from the east. Ain Shams University professor Mustafa Sharif said he had been hiding from sniper fire in Sibawayh al-Masry Street, which runs parallel to Anwar al-Mufti Street near Rab’a al-Adawiya school, at around 8:30 a.m., and saw five people shot and fall to the ground.[91] Their presence made it very dangerous to cross “Sniper Alley” for much of the day.

Security forces halted their advance at mid-day, although fire from snipers deployed on surrounding buildings continued. But, in parallel with their final push on Nasr Street, forces intensified their fire at around 3 p.m. One protester recalled security forces arbitrarily firing up and down the street.[92] Another protester, who had holed up with around 40 others in a tent just outside a security checkpoint off Anwar al-Mufti Street, described how fire from machine guns and snipers on top of the Traffic Directorate suddenly “rained” over the tent. Feeling exposed, with snipers able to see them through the open roof of the tent, the group quickly retreated into the courtyard adjacent to the Rab’a mosque, dodging heavy fire. The protester, who only saw 10 of the 40 people he had been hiding alongside when he arrived in the courtyard minutes later, is unsure what happened to the rest of the group.[93] Security forces had full control of Anwar al-Mufti Street by around 4:30 p.m.

Nasr Street, Manassa (West Entrance)

On the opposite western side of Nasr Street, the Rab’a sit-in extended to the intersection with Yousif Abbas Street, just past the large fountain and Mobil Gas station at the end of the road. Further to the west, Nasr Street leads to the Manassa, the stage Sadat spoke from the day he was assassinated in 1981, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a section of al-Azhar University, and the October 6 Bridge, which connects eastern Cairo to downtown.

During pre-recorded warnings played at some of the entrances to Rab’a, authorities identified this entry point as a “safe exit,” calling on protesters to leave from here and promising that no-one would be arrested. This part of the square, though, was the site of continuous fire throughout the day; as one local resident who did not participate in the sit-in told Human Rights, “sounds of gunshots and teargas didn’t stop from 6:20 a.m…until the attack stopped after 6 p.m.”[94]

Egyptian freelance journalist Maged Atef, who stood near Yousif Abbas Street for much of the morning, said he saw a few demonstrators leave, but most of them stayed put as a result of gunfire and concern that “safe exits” were a trap to arrest them on their way out.[95] One Egyptian photojournalist said that when he reached the Nasr Street exit at 8:15 a.m., he saw police arrest some bearded protesters leaving the sit-in.[96]

Security forces began to approach this entrance to the sit-in around 5:30-6 a.m. Atef said that he heard the police loudspeaker playing a pre-recorded warning around 6:15 a.m.[97] However, three protesters interviewed by Human Rights Watch who said they were in the same area said they did not hear the warning at that time.[98]

At approximately 6:20 a.m., security forces began to fire teargas, according to witnesses. A lawyer, awoken from his tent at 6:10 a.m. by protester warnings that dispersal was imminent, reported smelling teargas as he prayed minutes later.[99] A woman who lives several hundred meters from the intersection of Yousif Abbas and Nasr Streets told Human Rights Watch that she felt teargas inside her house by 6:40 a.m.[100]

Around 6:30 a.m., some 100 demonstrators left the sit-in entrance down Yousif Abbas Street in order to see what exactly was headed their way, one of the men who was part of this group told Human Rights Watch.[101] He said that the group encountered two bulldozers with tank-like tracks, four APCs carrying officers, and at least 50 police officers on foot. Another witness provided a similar account of the advancing formation.[102] The two men further outlined how bulldozers quickly removed the makeshift barriers that demonstrators had erected and forces began almost immediately firing teargas, less than lethal riot control guns, and live ammunition.[103] Protesters responded largely by throwing rocks, but, with no protection outside of the square, 20-30 of them fell, according to one of the men.[104] Human Rights Watch reviewed a video from around this time and it largely corroborated the accounts from witnesses, though it was not clear from the video that security forces were firing live ammunition.[105]

Protesters quickly retreated, and security forces advanced until they arrived near the sit-in entrance on Nasr Street at 6:45 a.m. Forces attacked from both sides of Yousif Abbas Street, as well as from the October 6 Bridge side of Nasr Street, firing the same mix of weapons into the sit-in, witnesses said. One protester observed a man who he believed was not affiliated with the Rab’a sit-in wave at the police from nearby train tracks and take a bullet in his head around 6:45 a.m. [106] Journalist Mohamed Hamdy said he was filming on Yousif Abbas Street at 7 a.m. when a man standing next to him was shot in the chest and fell to the ground. [107]

In order to prevent forces from entering the square, demonstrators gathered inside the nearby Mobil gas station, since the structure shielded them from incoming fire and allowed them a safe place from where they could throw rocks at advancing forces. A pharmacy student at al-Azhar University told Human Rights Watch that protesters threw rocks, sometimes with slingshots, from the gas station and from behind sandbags and makeshift walls on Nasr Street.[108] Journalist Maged Atef said that he saw one homemade shotgun with birdshot among protesters in the area, but no other weapons.[109] No other witnesses, including locals not affiliated with the Brotherhood, saw any other arms on protesters in this area at this point, they said.[110]

These efforts succeeded in preventing forces from entering Nasr Street until 10:30-11 a.m., but it came at a significant cost to protesters. One protester described to Human Rights Watch the killing of two protesters he witnessed at around 8:30 a.m.

I saw a woman who was wearing black and taking pictures fall. I found later that she took a bullet in the neck. I then saw one man standing by the fountain in the middle of Nasr Street on Yousif Abbas. It was a tough scene. He took a bullet in his shoulder and fell. He tried to get up and got one in the leg. He began to crawl, as blood trickled down. He was the only person up front and kept taking bullets in the arm and chest. He took at least eight bullets. The bullet would come, he would shake, and then not move…we tried to drag him to safety, but weren’t able to [for some time] because of the fire.[111]

Another protester, who had been breaking pavement to provide rocks to the front lines, described how a group of youth from the group Youth Against the Coup had been throwing rocks from behind sandbags on the front lines. At around 10 a.m., he said, he witnessed security forces climbing over the sandbags and shooting the protesters at close range with birdshot. He also saw bulldozers lift sandbags and drop them on top of the demonstrators.[112] According to him security forces briefly paused their fire later to allow protesters to collect the bodies of those killed.[113]

Another protester, who was among the group that went to collect the bodies, said he recalled seeing about 20 corpses. He described the scene to Human Rights Watch:

We found a pile of bodies over each other. They were all dead, no injured. The barricade was made of sandbags and the sand got mixed with the blood. It was clear that the APCs had passed over limbs. We found limbs that were totally crushed. There were people with no arms, obviously an APC ran over them. Imagine you are carrying piles of bodies, it is something you can’t imagine. Even the bodies that you are carrying, you carry an arm of a person, alongside the leg of another person. The scene was very difficult. [114]

As the morning progressed, security forces began firing more intensely, and snipers began to appear and fire from adjacent government buildings. One demonstrator who had been transporting the injured from Yousif Abbas Street to the field hospital described “relentless” fire from APCs that “made things shake.”[115] Another protester described hearing gunfire come from the adjacent Central Authority for Organization and Administration building and then looking ahead and seeing the man in front of him fall and his brain “come out into his hands.”[116]

An activist from Mansoura had come down Nasr Street to check on a photo panorama of images of deceased demonstrators from earlier protests she helped administer near Yousif Abbas Street. As she walked, she said she noticed a helicopter flying very low—at about the height of a three-story building—that stopped near her. She told Human Rights Watch that she began to run and, as she slid into a tent, a gunman in the plane shot birdshot pellets into her leg, injuring her.[117] Another protester told Human Rights Watch that he saw helicopters dropping teargas earlier in the morning.[118]

As a result of this push, security forces took over part of Nasr Street by 11 a.m., having succeeded in forcing protesters out of the Mobil gas station, and more or less secured the Yousif Abbas entrance to Nasr Street by around 1 p.m. Gunfire became less intense shortly thereafter, according to protesters and locals, but picked up significantly at around 3 p.m.

However, unlike their advance on the east side of Nasr Street, security forces did not push into the square. Instead, snipers on top of buildings repeatedly opened fire into crowds of demonstrators, local residents and protesters told Human Rights Watch. A university student described the chaos around the tent he had been hiding in at about 3:30 p.m.:

I saw an old man inside the tent take a bullet in the chest and fall. The bullet came from nearby buildings. I ran to the square, walking low. Snipers were everywhere, and I didn’t know how to move. I saw one tent with six martyrs. There was someone crouched next to me with blood on his face. I didn’t know what to do, as I couldn’t take bodies or injured people, because the snipers would hit me…it was over. I thought I would die, not get arrested, since they came to kill.[119]

When security forces eventually arrived at the center of Rab’a Square and took control, they again played pre-recorded warnings calling for protesters to leave from the west entrance of Nasr Street towards Manassa, several witnesses said.[120] A local resident, with a view overlooking this exit, told Human Rights Watch about the scene she saw when protesters began leaving from this exit:

At 3 p.m., protesters were coming out in lines, around tens of them, maybe 80 total. Security forces were firing at the ground just to scare them and force them to move faster at the end of the street…. At 4:30 p.m., I saw policemen hitting [two guys in their early 20’s] with the back of their rifle until I couldn’t see them…. At 4:45 p.m., I saw four policemen shooting at a human’s height, not to the ground as before…. They kept on shooting for at least three minutes nonstop at the four of them. And when they were done, they collected all the remains of the bullets from the floor.[121]

One protester, who had spent the day defending the west entrance of Nasr Street, described the “terror” he felt exiting the square for the final time, as gunmen in APCs shot over people and as forces flashed victory signs and hurled insults at the protesters. [122] Ultimately, even as security forces finally allowed protesters to exit from west Nasr Street at the end of day, they failed to secure it and turn it into the “safe exit” that had been promised.

Tayaran Street, Republican Guard (North Entrance)

Bisecting Nasr Street, Tayaran Street runs north to south. On the north side, the road has a military base on one side and a residential neighborhood to the other, and provides an outlet to Salah Salem Street, a major highway that runs parallel to Nasr Street, and the Republican Guard headquarters.

As at other entrances, security forces made their initial approach around 6 a.m., heading south on Tayaran Street from Salah Salem Street. Freelance journalist Maged Atef, who went to Salah Salem Street at 6:30 a.m. to make sure he could get out safely if he needed to, noticed that army soldiers had already arrested a handful of “bearded men” who had tried to leave the demonstration. Shortly thereafter, Atef saw security forces fire the first teargas canisters on protesters on the front lines down Tayaran Street.[123]

Within 15 minutes, security forces began using live fire, in addition to teargas. Mohamed Tareq, a zoology professor from Alexandria, and a 19-year-old college student from Cairo, both awoke from their tents on the northern part of Tayaran Street at 6:45 a.m. to the simultaneous sounds of live fire and teargas.[124] The heavy teargas overwhelmed many of the demonstrators. One protester told Human Rights Watch that the teargas caused him to lose consciousness.[125]Tareq said that many around him were choking from it.[126] As he helped those around him deal with the gas, Tareq noticed that several birdshot pellets had struck him.

By 7:30 a.m., Tareq told Human Rights Watch that security forces were “arbitrarily shooting all around.” As Tareq turned to face the square, three bullets penetrated his body, one in his arm, one that went into his back and through his chest, and a third that struck him in the side, he said.[127] He fell and was immediately carted away to the Rab’a field hospital. One protester said that many retreated during this period to the center of the square, which at the time was still comparatively safe.[128]

Security forces slowly advanced behind bulldozers, which destroyed blockades erected by demonstrators. Two witnesses told Human Rights Watch that protesters attempted to slow the advance by lobbing rocks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks, but to little avail. [129] By around 10:30-11 a.m., security forces had arrived roughly 200 meters from the stage, according to one protester. [130] After a brief lull in firing around midday, security forces quickly completed their advance, forcing the few remaining protesters into the center of the square.

Tayaran Street, Manufiya Building (South Entrance)

The southern part of Tayaran Street, which leads into the heart of Nasr City in eastern Cairo, witnessed some of the heaviest firing in all of Rab’a Square on August 14. While the protest encampment extended past the KFC Restaurant near Ibn Hani al-Andalusi Street, much of the violence took place in front of a building under construction that demonstrators referred to as the Manufiya Building. The ten-story building, named after the province from which the members of the Brotherhood security committee in charge of security at this entrance hailed, lies at the outlet of Sibawayh al-Masry Street, a side street that provides direct access to the Rab’a hospital.

Security forces began playing a looped pre-recorded warning around 6:30-6:40 a.m. on southern Tayaran Street calling on protesters to vacate the area, identifying a “safe exit,” and stating that no one who attempted to leave via the safe exit would be arrested. While several in the area said they heard the warning then, the majority of the 19 protesters whom Human Rights Watch interviewed who were located at this entrance said they did not hear it until later in the morning. One resident who lives off Tayaran Street told Human Rights Watch that from around 8 a.m. onwards, she heard loudspeaker announcements calling on protesters to leave the sit-in.[131]

Almost simultaneously, security forces began to attack demonstrators on the edges of the street with teargas and birdshot, five demonstrators on the front lines told Human Rights Watch. One protester estimated that forces lobbed fifty canisters a minute at the beginning of the dispersal.[132]

Bulldozers led the advance of APCs and police vans, pushing through makeshift barriers of rock, sand, and rows of cars that demonstrators had set up at the entrance. By around 7:30-8 a.m., protesters at the scene said that security forces began using live ammunition, which they described as “arbitrary” and “random,” as the forces pushed north from Tayaran Street and intersecting side streets.[133] By 8:30-9 a.m., forces had arrived within meters of the Manufiya Building.

Demonstrators primarily attempted to slow the advance of forces by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Moaz Alaa, a first-year student at Cairo University, recounted one harrowing scene he witnessed in the morning:

As the bulldozer came to lift the fences, one person got on the bulldozer and threw a rock on its windshield. The bulldozer moved back and forth and picked him up. He definitely died.[134]

Several demonstrators also told Human Rights Watch that that they observed or heard about a few armed protesters in the Manufiya Building in the later morning and early afternoon. One protester, who was throwing rocks at security forces from within the Manufiya Building, told Human Rights Watch that he saw one person with a handmade shotgun with birdshot and later one with a rifle and overhead someone say, “Don’t worry, we have weapons and are responding.”[135] The Interior Ministry also has released video footage showing fire coming from the Manufiya Building at some point during the dispersal.[136]

The Manufiya Building offered protesters strategic elevation from which to reach approaching forces with rocks and Molotov cocktails and walls and pillars to hide behind. Protesters also hurled projectiles from Tayaran Street itself and the gas station across the street. One demonstrator told Human Rights Watch that protesters on the front lines were supported by others who stayed behind and burned tires to lessen the effect of teargas, collected glass and gas for the Molotov cocktails, and broke rocks to pass up front.[137] These efforts succeeded in preventing forces from entering the square for over six hours.

However, security forces quickly escalated their fire in order to break the stale

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[1] Url: https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt

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