Egypt: Rab’a Massacre Reverberates 10 Years Later

(Beirut, August 14, 2023) – Egyptian authorities have failed for a decade to hold anyone accountable for the largest mass killing in Egypt’s modern history, Human Rights Watch said today. The Rab’a massacre, a likely crime against humanity, took place in Cairo on August 14, 2013, and kick-started a mass repression campaign targeting government critics, precipitating one of Egypt’s worst human rights crises in many decades.
Despite overwhelming evidence compiled by Human Rights Watch and calls by the United Nations and international human rights organizations for an investigation, the authorities have failed to investigate or prosecute anyone for the killings of hundreds of protesters that day. Security forces violently dispersed the sit-in at Rab’a al-Adawiya, the main gathering of protesters demanding the reinstatement of then-President Mohamed Morsy. Hundreds of protesters who participated in the sit-in remain imprisoned, convicted in grossly unfair mass trials, and some have been sentenced to death. Many others fled into exile.