Human Rights Watch Daily Brief

Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 12 August 2014

Egypt, Ukraine, Iraq, US, Gaza, Saudi, Philippines, Cambodia, Afghanistan, North Korea

In today's Brief: Egypt's Rab'a killings likely 'crime against humanity'; Russia's "aid" convoy;
Iraq crisis; US police shooting; Gaza truce; lashing & jail in Saudi; key arrest in Philippines;
Cambodia refugee controversy; no justice in Afghanistan; torture in US, North Korea to show
'true picture' of human rights..

https://storify.com/HRW/human-rights-watch-daily-brief-12-august-2014/slideshow?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=publisher&utm_campaign=embed-header-slideshow

Egypt: Rab’a Killings Likely Crimes against Humanity

No Justice a Year Later for Series of Deadly Mass Attacks on Protesters

August 12, 2014

(Cairo) – The systematic and widespread killing of at least 1,150 demonstrators by Egyptian
security forces in July and August 2013 probably amounts to crimes against humanity, Human
Rights Watch said today in a report based on a year-long investigation. In the August 14 dispersal
of the Rab’a al-Adawiya sit-in alone, security forces, following a plan that envisioned several
thousand deaths, killed a minimum of 817 people and more likely at least 1,000.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AUtFM9L6ago

US Still Funding Repression One Year After Egypt's Rab'a Massacre,

Friday, 15 August 2014 11:20 By Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK | News Analysis

It has been one year since the August 14, 2013 Rab'a Square massacre in Egypt, when the
Egyptian police and army opened fire on demonstrators opposed to the military's July 3 ouster
of President Mohamed Morsi.

Using tanks, bulldozers, ground forces, helicopters, and snipers, police and army personnel
mercilessly attacked the makeshift protest encampment, where demonstrators, including women
and children, had been camped out for over 45 days. The result was the worst mass killing in
Egypt's modern history.
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The U.S. case is similar. According to U.S. law, a coup is supposed to have consequences. Senator
Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who wrote the legislation, said "Our law is clear: U.S. aid is cut off when
a democratically elected government is deposed by military coup. This is a time to reaffirm our
commitment to the principle that transfers of power should be by the ballot, not by force of arms."

The U.S. government refuses to even obey its own laws, which would entail cutting the $1.3 billion
it sends every year to the Egyptian military. Too much is at stake for powerful interests:

• The United States wants Egypt to fulfill its commitment to the 1979 Camp David Accords,
which ensures Egypt's complicity in the Israeli occupation of Gaza. This complicity became clear
during the latest Israeli attack, where Sisi helped squeeze the Palestinians by closing off the border
between Egypt and Gaza.
• The United States wants to ensure priority access for U.S. Navy ships to the Suez Canal,
as well as the flow of oil and gas through the canal.
• "Aid" to Egypt is really a subsidy for U.S. weapons exporters. Most of the money never
gets to Egypt, but goes to powerful U.S. military contractors such as General Dynamics and
Lockheed Martin that make the tanks and fighter jets that get sent to Egypt (whether or not the
Egyptian military wants the equipment).


http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25600-one-year-after-egypts-raba-massacre-us-still-funding-repression