Egypt hit back Saturday at a call by the Human Rights Watch for an international investigation into the killing of hundreds of protesters in Cairo by security forces two years ago.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry hit out at the New York-based watchdog’s report on the deaths of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square as “politicized and lacking objectivity,” AFP reported.
Egypt’s government defended the dispersal as necessary to tackle what it called armed “terrorists” and brushed aside HRW’s appeal for the UN Human Rights Council to set up an international commission of inquiry.
At least 600 people were killed during the operation in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square on August 14, 2013, according to official figures. HRW says at least 800 died. No policemen have faced trial over the deaths.
According to witnesses, snipers encircled two Cairo protest camps in the early hours of the morning and began firing into the crowd as other troops prevented whole families from leaving the site.
Rights groups have accused police of using disproportionate force, killing many unarmed protesters in what HRW said “probably amounted to crimes against humanity.”
Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, was overthrown and detained by the military after mass protests against his year in office. He has since been sentenced to death.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former army chief, has pledged to eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood.
A police crackdown has left hundreds of Morsi supporters dead in street clashes, thousands more have been jailed and many sentenced to death in hasty trials.
