One year after Egyptian security forces moved in to clear protesters from Raba’a al-Adawiyya Square and other protest camps across the country, killing at least 1000, Human Rights Watch said those responsible for the massacre were likely to have committed a crime against humanity.

In a report issued on 11 August, HRW documented the deaths of 817 protesters killed on 14 August 2013, and presented evidence showing that events on the day had unfolded as a pre-meditated act of state murder. Tens of thousands of protesters supporting the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi were crammed into Raba’a al-Adawiyya Square in. Security forces opened fire within minutes of announcing the dispersal of the camp, killing hundreds of protesters, including children, with shots to the head, neck and chest. Protesters were given no safe route out of the camp, as the security forces blocked all the entrances, in some cases firing on those who tried to escape.

The scale of the killing was bigger than the massacre of protesters by the Chinese government at Tiannanmen Square in 1989, Human Rights Watch said.

The indiscriminate and deliberate use of lethal force re-sulted in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.

The current Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi is among senior military and civilian officials who should be held individually responsible for their role in the massacre, the report concluded.

Read the full report online here

What you can do:

• Get involved with our campaigns against repression in Egypt. Find out more on this website
• Pass a resolution condemning repression in Egypt in your trade union branch or student union. Model resolution online here.