Weeks of Killing State Violence, Communal Fighting, and Sectarian Attacks in the Summer of 2013

The Weeks of Killing State Violence, Communal fighting, and Sectarian Attacks in the Summer of 2013 June 2014 Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights 6 Dar Al Shifa (formerly Abdel Latif Bolteya) St., Garden City, Cairo, Telephone & fax: +(202) 27960158 / 27960197 www.eipr.org - [email protected] All printing and publication rights reserved. This report may be redistributed with attribution for non-profit pur- poses under Creative Commons license. www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 Numerous EIPR researchers contributed to this report, but we especially wish to acknowledge those who put themselves at risk to observe events personally, constantly striving to maintain their neutrality amid bloody conflict. We also wish to thank those who gave statements for this report, whether participants in the events, observers or journalists. EIPR also wishes to thank activists and colleagues at other human rights organizations who participated in some joint field missions and/or shared their findings with EIPR. The Weeks of Killing: State Violence, Communal fighting, and Sectarian Attacks in the Summer of 2013 Table of Contents Executive summary .............................................................................................. 5 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 9 Part one: 30 June–5 July: an unprecedented spike in Communal violence 14 30 June: Muqattam .................................................................................... 15 2 July: Bayn al-Sarayat ............................................................................... 20 5 July: Sidi Gaber ........................................................................................... 28 5 July: Manyal ............................................................................................... 37 Part two: wide-scale extrajudicial killing by the state and continued civil clashes and tension ........................................................................................... 39 8 July: Republican Guard incident .............................................................. 40 19 July: Mansoura events ........................................................................... 50 26 July: events at al-Qaid Ibrahim ............................................................ 53 27 July: the war memorial and Nasr Road .................................................. 57 Part three: dispersal of sit-ins at Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda Square ......... 61 Death toll ...................................................................................................... 65 Part four: wide-scale sectarian attacks ......................................................... 90 Closing comment ............................................................................................... 99 Security forces and policing rules ....................................................................... 99 Police Units responsible for engaging with assemblies and public disorder .................................................................................................... 103 Responsibility of security forces during sectarian attacks ................. 105 Recommendations .......................................................................................... 106 Appendix: Egypt’s obligations under international human rights law ....... 109 4 Executive summary This report covers the period from 30 June to 17 August 2013, which saw the removal of Pres- ident Mohamed Morsi from office and subsequent violent clashes. The report affirms the state’s responsibility for human rights violations in this period—both through its direct participation in abuses and its failure to protect citizens’ lives and property in attacks on them by non-state ac- tors—as well as identifying the responsibility of partisan and political groups that were directly involved in violence against citizens’ homes and property, or deployed hate speech and incitement to discrimination in their media outlets, or at best proved unable to contain this rhetoric. The report is divided into four main sections, as well as an introduction, concluding comment, recommendations, and an appendix detailing Egypt’s international obligations. Part one of the report looks at four incident of unprecedented civil violence (clashes between non-official individuals and/or civilian groups) that took place from 30 June to 5 July, leaving at least 53 people dead and hundreds injured. In these events, the absence of the state was one of the primary factors for escalation. Part one documents the clashes that took place in Muqattam at the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau headquarters on 30 June, which lasted for more than 16 hours and ended with the death of seven people and the injury of 31 at least. It then examines events in the Bayn al-Sarayat area on 2 July, where clashes persisted for 18 hours, ultimately resulting in 25 deaths and more injuries. This is followed by clashes at Sidi Gaber on 5 July; lasting nine hours, they took the lives of 16 people. Finally, this part reviews the clashes in Manyal on 5 July, which lasted for nearly ten hours, leaving at least four dead (in addition to one person wounded in the fighting who died 41 days later) and no less than 103 injured. Part two documents six incidents that marked the beginning of large-scale extrajudicial killing by the state after 30 June; civil clashes and social strife also continued parallel with state violence. This section discusses the dispersal of the sit-in in front of the Republican Guard Club on 8 July, during which 61 civilians were killed and more than 300 injured, while two policemen and one army officer were killed and several security personnel injured. It then moves on to the The Weeks of Killing: State Violence, Communal fighting, and Sectarian Attacks in the Summer of 2013 | 5 The Weeks of Killing: State Violence, Communal fighting, and Sectarian Attacks in the Summer of 2013 events in Mansoura on 19 July, which ended with the death of four women, followed by the clashes at al-Qaid Ibrahim, which lasted throughout the day of 26 July and ended with the death of 12 and the injury of more than 175. Finally, it looks at events at the war memorial and Nasr Road on 27 July, which left at least 91 people dead. Part three of the report examines in detail the dispersal of the sit-ins at Raba›a al-Adawiya and al-Nahda on 14 August. A special section was devoted to these events since they were the most lethal incidents of the period and saw the greatest use of excessive force and the largest number of violations. Several police personnel and civilians were also killed in subsequent, related violence in various places in the capital and other governorates. Although there is no official count on the number of casualties from the dispersal of the Rabia sit-in—where clashes lasted for at least 11 hours—the death toll ranges from 499 (according to the Forensic Medicine Author- ity) and 932 (according to data from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights). The latter number appears to be more accurate and is close to the estimate of Prime Minister al-Beblawi, who referred in media statements to approximately 1,000 casualties. In view of its smaller size, both in terms of surface area covered and number of participants, the dispersal of the Nahda sit-in took less than two hours, leaving 87 people dead and at least 147 injured. Part four of the report discusses the unprecedented sectarian violence seen in Egypt from 30 June to 17 August. It began as leaders of the Anti-Coup Pro-Legitimacy National Alliance sup- porting the ousted president escalated the rhetoric of incitement against the Church and Coptic spiritual leaders after the armed forces moved to depose Morsi on 3 July. In these few short weeks, 43 churches came under attack. Of these, 27 of were looted and burned almost or entire- ly to the ground, while 13 churches were partially looted and their doors and windows vandal- ized or destroyed; shots were fired at three churches. The attacks also struck seven schools and six Christian associations, including two medical centers and an orphanage. In addition, seven church service buildings were torched, and the homes of ten Christian clerics were attacked. In the six weeks following Morsi’s removal up to the morning of the dispersal of the Raba›a sit-in, 9 Coptic citizens were killed in various governorates: four in Luxor, two in North Sinai, and one person died in Minya, Sohag, and Cairo. All of these assaults on citizens’ lives and property and religious facilities took place in the near complete absence of security forces, firefighters and civil defense, or army forces. 6 The report makes several recommendations, among them: 1. Regarding “the national independent fact-finding commission investigating the events of the 30 June 2013 revolution and its aftermath”: • Empower the commission to subpoena all state officials and require them to -ap pear to give a statement in cases examined by the commission. Grant the commission the right to require both government and private bodies to submit all infor- mation, statements, documentation, and evidence pertinent to its assigned tasks. • Give the commission the power of summons, search, and seizure while ensuring judicial oversight. • Establish instruments to monitor and implement the commission’s recommendations after the completion of its work and the submission of its reports, including an instrument

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