Thirteen years after the massacre at Rabaa al-Adawiya and al-Nahda squares, justice remains elusive.
On 14 August 2013, Egyptian security forces and the army stormed the two peaceful sit-ins calling for the return of elected President Mohamed Morsi, who had been ousted in the 3 July coup d’état that same year, in an operation described as one of the deadliest episodes of protest repression in Egypt’s recent history.
Alkarama Documents the Massacre
From the very first hours, Alkarama mobilised on the ground to document the events at Rabaa, documenting the victims, with nearly a thousand people killed or injured within just a few hours, as well as the thousands arrested in the days that followed.
These figures are consistent with those established by other international organisations and investigators, who documented at least 817 deaths within a matter of hours, while estimating that the actual death toll may have exceeded one thousand.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, for its part, estimated that more than 900 anti-government protesters were killed during the dispersal of the two sit-ins. These various bodies concluded that the widespread and systematic killing of protesters amounted to a crime against humanity.
Alkarama’s Action before UN Mechanisms
In the aftermath of the massacre, Alkarama submitted a case to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, providing a list identifying the victims by name, and called on the then High Commissioner for Human Rights to urge the Security Council to refer these mass crimes to the International Criminal Court, in accordance with the 2001 Rome Statute.
At the time, Alkarama Director Rachid Mesli stressed that the excessive and bloody intervention by the army and security forces against peaceful protesters contained all the legal elements required for it to be classified as a crime against humanity under international law.
Impunity Persists
Despite repeated decisions and calls by several United Nations bodies and non-governmental human rights organisations, including calls by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for a thorough investigation, no serious investigation into those responsible has been opened to date.
The subsequent judicial proceedings, rather than targeting the perpetrators, have instead targeted victims, survivors and their families through mass convictions and unfair trials that have drawn widespread criticism from human rights organisations.
Alkarama stresses that the double standards of Western countries have contributed to perpetuating this impunity, with the head of the Egyptian regime being received in several European capitals as though nothing had happened, shortly after the massacre.
Justice Remains Essential
After thirteen years without an independent and impartial investigation, Alkarama reaffirms that the Rabaa case remains fully open from a human rights perspective, and that the absence of accountability cannot grant permanent immunity to those who committed the crimes or those who ordered them.
Alkarama once again calls for an independent and impartial international investigation into the operations to disperse the Rabaa and al-Nahda sit-ins and the killings that accompanied them, in accordance with international standards governing investigations into deaths and serious human rights violations, and for the case to be brought before the United Nations Security Council with a view to its referral to the International Criminal Court, as well as for the individual and institutional responsibility of all those who ordered, planned, carried out or covered up these violations to be established.
Alkarama further calls on the Egyptian authorities to review the mass convictions handed down in connection with the Rabaa events and to release those detained on account of their opinions or political opposition, while ensuring the right of victims and their families to truth, an effective remedy and reparation.