Iran press/Africa: Amnesty International says at least 900 protesters were killed by security forces in the attack, marking “a horrific turning point for human rights in Egypt.”
Rights groups in Egypt and across the world say the Cairo government has detained thousands of people, including 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.
Human Rights Watch strongly criticized Egyptian authorities for trying to “insulate those responsible for these crimes from justice,” in an apparent reference to that law.
The US-based rights group said the protest crackdown was “the largest mass killings in Egypt’s modern history.”
On August 14, 2013, Egyptian security forces launched a violent attack on a protest camp at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in the capital, Cairo, killing hundreds of people.
A majority of those killed were followers of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, who had been ousted on July 3 the same year in a military coup led by then-head of the armed forces and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The Sisi administration has outlawed the Brotherhood organization, which is Egypt’s oldest opposition movement. The group operated under strict measures during the rule of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, who was himself removed from power following an uprising in 2011.
Morsi was sentenced to death on charges of corruption, escaping from prison, and inciting violence before the Court of Cassation overturned that ruling in November last year and ordered a retrial.
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