One Year After Egypt’s Rab’a Massacre, US Still Funding Repression

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/medea-benjamin/57608/one-year-after-egypt-s-rab-a-massacre-us-still-funding-repression

One Year After Egypt’s Rab’a Massacre, US Still Funding Repression
Egypt
by Medea Benjamin | August 14, 2014 - 7:06am

It has been one year since the August 14, 2013 Rab’a Square massacre in Egypt, when the Egyptian police and army opened fire on demonstrators opposed to the military’s July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. Using tanks, bulldozers, ground forces, helicopters and snipers, police and army personnel mercilessly attacked the makeshift protest encampment, where demonstrators, including women and children, had been camped out for over 45 days. The result was the worst mass killing in Egypt’s modern history.

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The systematic and intentional killing of unarmed protesters is a crime against humanity and those responsible should be investigated and held accountable. At the top of the chain of command during the Rab’a massacre was then-Defense Minister Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who orchestrated the military overthrow of democratically-elected Morsi. But neither Sisi nor any government officials have been prosecuted for the killings. On the contrary; Sisi has managed to usurp even more power, becoming Egypt’s president via rigged elections.

Since the massacre, Sisi has overseen a year of intense government repression that has included the arrests of tens of thousands of people, including Islamists and leftist political activists. More than 65 journalists have been detained and some, like three Al Jazeera journalists, have been sentenced to 7-10 years in prison. Egypt’s criminal justice system has become a cruel joke; sentencing 1,247 people to death in trials makes a mockery of the word “justice”. In many cases defendants were not brought to their trials and lawyers have repeatedly been barred from presenting their defense or questioning witnesses.

Amnesty International has documented the sharp deterioration in human rights in Egypt in the past year, including the surge in arbitrary arrests, torture and deaths in police custody. Amnesty says torture is routinely carried out by the military and police, with members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood particularly targeted. Among the methods of torture employed are electric shocks, rape, handcuffing detainees and suspending them from open doors.