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Monday, 19 November 2012
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  • Egypt: Protester Killings a Test for Morsy

    (New York, November 19, 2012) Families of the 45 protesters killed and the hundreds injured when police responded to protests over military rule with excessive force and brutality from November 19 through 24, 2011, are still waiting for justice a year later, Human Rights Watch said today.
    Confrontations between protesters and the Central Security Forces (CSF), Egypt’s riot police, raged for five days in November 2011 on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, just off Tahrir square. The clashes began after riot police violently dispersed a peaceful sit-in protesting military rule.
    Human Rights Watch documented how police shot live ammunition, rubber bullets, and pellets into the crowd, and fired excessive amounts of teargas into spaces between buildings where protesters were positioned. At Zeinhom morgue in central Cairo, Human Rights Watch confirmed that 22 of the dead protesters had been shot with live bullets and that three others died as a result of asphyxiation from teargas. Police arrested and tortured dozens of protesters, including many women who were also sexually assaulted by police officers during the arrests.
    The five-day toll was 45 protesters dead and over 2,000 injured. Police officers also were injured when protesters threw stones, although official numbers were not available.
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