- Human Rights
- December 31, 2007
- 4 minutes read
5 Rights Groups Urge Mubarak Reopen Sudanese Refugees Probe
Five human rights organizations called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to order an independent judicial investigation committee to probe into the incident in which police forces assaulted Sudanese protesters- refugees and asylum seekers and emigrants- in the incident that took place in in Mostafa Mahmud Square in Cairo two years ago. Although 27 protesters were killed and dozens others were injured in this incident, no one was held accountable since then .
The five organizations- Egyptian initiative for personal rights, Hesham Mubarak”s legal aid centre, Al-nadeem center for the rehabilitation of violence victims, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch- revealed in a report issued on Saturday Dec, 29th, 2007, that the initial investigations showed that there were coordinated efforts aiming to clear the police of any wrongdoing.
Lawyer Khaled Ali, an official at Hesham Mubarak”s human rights center, confirmed that the organizations issued this call to the president in person to form an independent judiciary committee to reopen investigation into this tragic incident which was completely disregarded.
He pointed out in a statement to Ikhwanweb that the five organizations managed to get the memo that included the violations committed on that day, and how the police dispersed the Sudanese who were staging a sit-in in this square at Al-Muhandisin.
He added that this memo included violations which are liable to trigger the formation of a judicial committee-not only a prosecution committee- to investigate into those incidents again.
Khaled confirmed that the security forces” treatment with the Sudanese refugees wasn”t committed by mistake, but it was premeditated and its results were known in advance by the police. However, the policemen insisted on using force to disperse the Sudanese.
He pointed out premeditatedly dispersing them in such a savage manner is fully rejected. It is unreasonable to deal with that brutality in an incident that killed several children in addition to others who were killed in a stampede while they were forcefully dispersed.
The police used water also to disperse the refugees although this night was very cold.
He saw that perpetrators of this crime must face its fair judicial results. Joe Stork, the deputy manager of the Middle East section of Human Rights Watch confirmed that “The attorney general”s decision of fully clearing the police lacks credibility”.
It is worth mentioning that the autopsy reports related to this incident showed that there were injuries that resulted from hitting with solid surfaces and that a death case resulted from injuries in the head and the neck, leading to a brain concussion and a failure in the top functions in the brain. Another death case resulted from a cerebral injury, that led to injuring the nerves. This proves that there were attempts in the forensic medicine reports in the Ministry of Justice to hide any criminal liability in these deaths.
The human rights organizations report pointed that the Doqqi chief prosecutor, Wael Hussein, based his decision on the forensic medicine reports that confirmed that all deaths were due to overcrowdedness, falling and stampedes, denying any relation whatsoever between these deaths and the brutal method adopted by the policemen to disperse strikers.
Khaled Ali expressed his hope that a positive reaction comes in response to this call sent by the human rights organizations. They sent this call to the president hoping that a real response is issued.