Egypt stops Human Rights Watch staffers at airport

By: 10 years ago

Cairo — Egyptian authorities stopped the executive director of Human Rights Watch and another U.S. staffer from entering the country Monday ahead of the release of a critical report by the group on mass killings by security forces last summer, the group and security officials said.

An airport official said the two were turned back on instructions from a security agency, without elaborating. The two had spent nearly 12 hours in Cairo International Airport, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

This is the first time Egyptian authorities have stopped staffers from the New-York based group entry from entering the country.

Human Rights Watch was to release a report Tuesday about the security crackdown last year on protesters backing deposed Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Hundreds were killed in one of the raids, described by Human Rights Watch as the worst massacre in Egypt’s modern history.

Executive Director Kenneth Roth and Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson were to brief diplomats and journalists on the findings of their investigation into the bloody events in July and August last year following the ouster of Morsi.

Human Rights Watch said Egypt’s police and army “methodically opened fire with live ammunition,” killing at least 1,150 protesters during the dispersals of one of the largest sit-ins by Morsi protesters at Cairo’s Rabaah el-Adawiyah Square and five other demonstrations. No one has been held accountable for the crackdown and no formal investigation has been made public.

The group said it had shared its findings with the government but received no response.

“It appears the Egyptian government has no appetite to face up to the reality of these abuses, let alone hold those responsible to account,” Roth said in a statement.

Interior Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said he had no immediate response to the barring of the Human Rights Watch executives or the report. However, he said Egypt’s semi-official National Council for Human Rights had conducted its own investigation into the dispersals.

“The Egyptian judiciary will have its say, and its decisions will be the ones to be implemented,” he said.