NCHR report on Rabaa 'inaccurate', says member

Ahram Online , Friday 7 Mar 2014

The report on the dispersal of the Rabaa protest last summer is 'inaccurate' says human rights campaigner Hafez Abu Seada

Rabaa sit-in dispersal
Dispersal of the protest camp at Rabaa in Cairo on August 14 2013 (Photo: AP)

Hafez Abu Seada, a member of the state body the National Council for Human Rights, has criticised the council’s report on last summer’s political violence, saying it was inaccurate.

The council on Wednesday released a preview of its upcoming report which focuses on the dispersal of the Rabaa and Nahda protest camps by the security forces in August.

"The council’s report about the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in was extremely strange, and many of the council's members rejected it because it was inaccurate and did not document anything," the human rights activist told Al-Ahram’s Arabic website on Thursday.

Abu Seada added that a number of the council members had demanded that the announcement of that report be delayed.

"The report did not depend on accurate information regarding the number of the killed from a documented governmental or nongovernmental source," he said. 

"This did not happen; no one was held accountable and thus the report has no importance,” he said. He has also demanded compensation for the victims of both the Rabaa and Nahda sit-in dispersals.

According to the report, 632 people were killed during the dispersal operations on 14 August, including eight police officers.

The report also stated that while supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi fired first, security forces on the scene responded with "excessive force".

One of the surprises in the report issued today by the National Council of Human Rights is that the statement which was read in the press conference was different from the one which was amended by the council. I was surprised by another statement, and so I withdrew," Abu Seada tweeted on Wednesday. 

The full report of Rabaa sit-in dispersal will be released officially on 16 March. The document will cover the Rabaa and Nahda protests as well as events immediately following the dispersals, including attacks on churches, the death of 37 pro-Morsi detainees in a police truck outside of Abu Zaabal prison, and the attacks on police stations in the Giza town of Kerdasa.

The council’s fact-finding committee was formed last September.

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