August 14, 2021, marks the eighth anniversary of the largest mass murder in Egypt in modern times – the massacres of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-ins, Al-Nahda Square and a number of other squares across Egyptian governorates on August 14, 2013.
More than 1,000 people were killed and thousands more injured on that day, while hundreds were arrested. Others were subjected to enforced disappearance, their fate still unknown.
The years have passed, but the perpetrators have still not been held to account. Egyptian authorities have not brought charges against security personnel or any others responsible for the violent dispersal, and the regime was satisfied to simply issue two fabricated reports on the massacres. The security services were officially exonerated – and the blame placed entirely on the protesters.
Just several weeks ago, the politicised Egyptian judiciary issued their final ruling to execute 12 survivors of the events of eight years ago, including prominent opposition leaders, in an illustration of the regime’s insistence on killing those who escaped death on that day. Their sentence was decided by a mock judiciary that has nothing to do with a genuine system of justice.
In this regards, AOHR UK calls you to post videos in solidarity with the victims of the massacre to let them know that they have not been forgotten, and that seeking justice for them is the top priority for those support humanitarian causes and human rights defenders across the world.
