Egypt: HORNWATCH condemns the mass killings of Egypt civilian protesters in Cairo by Egyptian Security Forces

 Immediate Release:

Africa Ref: 123/2013
Date: 15 August 2013

 
In the early morning of 14 August 2013, Egyptian security forces started to clear the Muslim Brotherhood’s six week long sit-ins in Rabaa Mosque Square in Nasr City, east of Cairo, and Nahda Square. The sit-ins had been set up by protesters demonstrating against the removal on 3 July of elected President Mohammed Morsi, his continuing detention and the suspension of the 2012 Constitution.

As result of the violent intervention by the security forces, unconfirmed numbers of civilians have reportedly been killed by live ammunition, and a higher number of civilians have been seriously injured. According to the independent source received by HORNWATCH at least 1500 civilian people killed and nearly 3680 injured. The Ministry of the Interior has also reported that six security officers have been killed by armed protesters.  
 
"HORNWATCH condemns in the strongest terms possible the killings of protesters in Cairo Rabaa Mosque and Nahda squares and the use of excessive and disproportionate force by the security forces.

We see the Egypt Military and the security forces violent intervention as intension genocide against Egypt civilian protesters, the black days of Egyptian begun now” said Mr. Suleiman Bolaleh, HORNWATCH Chairperson.

In response to the situation, the Egyptian interim Government declared a month-long state of emergency across the country.

“The appalling scenes in Cairo today were predictable, and so is the massive number of casualties, number that is likely to rise in the days and weeks to come. The killings were brought about by the military coup of 3 July, itself preceded by one year of bad governance and attacks on fundamental freedoms.  The logical outcome of the events of the last month has been sadly unfolding: a spiral of increasing sectarian violence and mass killings and the nominal return of the Army to power, signifying the failure of the first phase of democratic transition post Arab Spring in Egypt.
    
The State of Emergency is not only unlikely to bring about any solution to the political crisis in Egypt, it could well and on its own deepen it even further away from the democratic ideals of the 2011 protesters in Tahir Square. Indeed, one of the achievements of the 2011 revolution had been the lifting of the state of emergency that had been in place in the country for decades and under which the Egyptian authorities had arbitrarily detained people who spoke out, tortured them, and censored independent news.

HORNWATCH calls on the Egyptian Interim government and Army to:

1.     Lift the state of emergency and fully comply with applicable international law;

2.     In any case, ensure that the right to freedom of expression and information of all is fully protected and guaranteed. The rights of journalists and the media must be protected; journalists should be allowed them to report without fear and censorship;

3.     Fully respect its obligation under international law which clearly state that even in time of emergency,  authorities must protect the right to life and freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.  This means that the state must refrain from arbitrarily detaining people, torturing them, engaging in other reprisals against them, or denying them their right to fair trial;

4.     Immediately release former President Morsi and all other political prisoners;

5.     Take meaningful and trustworthy steps towards initiating a national dialogue inclusive of all political forces and civil society;

6.     Cease the shutting down of pro-Morsi satellite stations, and the tight censorship on the state broadcasting;

7.     Conduct a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the excessive use of force, including the killing of protestors and the killings of the two journalists;

8.     Investigate sectarian violence, including those against members of the Coptic community and bring all those responsible to justice.

HORNWATCH urges all political forces in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood, to truthfully work towards getting out of the current impasse and spiral of violence through dialogue and negotiations.

HORNWATCH calls on the international community, including the United Nations, to take a pro-active role in ensuring an end to the political and human rights crisis by supporting an inclusive political dialogue and solution.  A possible model could be that followed for Yemen in 2012 when the UN Security Council supported the appointment of a Special Adviser and of a team of UN experts to support the implementation of the transition process, and provide advice to the parties in support of the National Dialogue process.

British company enters Somalia; police investigate Nigeria

Somalia’s President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, 
who will make a year in office next month, appears 
keen to establish his country’s oil and gas potential

In the first oil and gas deal since Somalia’s pacification by Ugandan troops, the new government in Mogadishu has given extensive exploration rights to a UK-based company chaired by a former British cabinet minister and leader of the Conservative Party.


The deal will allow the recently-formed Soma Oil and Gas to apply for licences in up to 12 blocks in return for undertaking an extensive seismic survey and handing over the data to the government, according to a Financial Times report.

Soma is chaired by Lord Michael Howard, who led the UK Conservative Party from 2003-05.  According to the Financial Times, Somalia’s minister for natural resources, Abdirizak Omar Mohamed, said Lord Howard’s high profile was “critical to agreeing the deal.”

Over the last two years, the UK government has hosted two major conferences on the future of Somalia, while Ugandan forces, combined with peacekeeping contingents from Burundi and military intervention from Kenya, were wresting control from Al-Shabaab salafist militants.

The Financial Times notes that Somalia’s government earlier said it would not hand out exploration licences until new oil laws were put in place, acknowledging that the country is “too fragile to risk oil exploration because it was likely to pit different regions and warlords against each other.

Lord Howard appears to have changed the government’s mind.

Nigerian ex-oil minister grosses US$ 1 billion

Meanwhile, according to a Reuters report, British police are investigating a US$ 1.3 billion deal in Nigeria, where the Anglo-Dutch company, Shell, and Italian oil major, ENI, bought exploration rights over a block thought to contain up to 9 billion barrels of oil.

Former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete, had in 1998 awarded the block to a company he was “closely associated with” for just US$ 2 million.

He is alleged now to have received US$ 1.09 billion by selling the rights to the European companies, grossing a profit of US$ 1,088 million.

A Shell spokesman told Reuters it had bought the block from the government, and that it acted in accordance with Nigerian law.

However, according to the Reuters report, transparency campaigners insist that the government of Nigeria was acting as a go-between, and government sources confirm that they passed on US$ 1.09 billion to Etete.
Activist pressure has led Scotland Yard’s ‘proceeds from crime’ unit to open an investigation into possible money-laundering.

A French court has previously convicted Etete of money laundering.

Report by NY

Egyptian troops raid pro-Morsi camps in Cairo, while violence across country leaves dozens dead

CAIRO — Egyptian security forces moved on Wednesday to clear two camps in Cairo occupied by supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, deploying armored vehicles, bulldozers, tear gas, snipers and helicopters in a sustained and bloody operation that seemed to surprise some protesters with its ferocity.

Witnesses spoke of gunfire from shotguns and automatic rifles as white clouds of tear gas offset plumes of black smoke from burning tires in violence that deepened an already profound gulf in Egyptian society. Protesters arrived at field hospitals with gunshot wounds to the neck and chest. At one location, soldiers were seen firing on a lone protester lobbing rocks from a rooftop. There were reports of scores of fatalities, including several police officers. Many people were arrested, including leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, news reports said. 

Amid the confusion, there were wildly divergent tallies of the death toll. The Muslim Brotherhood called the operation a “massacre” and put the number of dead in the hundreds, a figure that was not immediately borne out by accounts from reporters visiting morgues. But the toll nonetheless seemed to climb rapidly. At one makeshift morgue run by pro-Morsi supporters, the number of dead bodies rose from 3 to 12 in a matter of minutes. By early afternoon, estimates of the number of dead, as chronicled in news reports, ranged from 56 to 124.

Sky News said one of its veteran cameramen, Mick Deane, was killed. The circumstances were not clear. Mohamed el-Beltagy, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, said his 17-year-old daughter was also among the dead.

Hours after the operation began, the authorities said they had cleared the smaller of two encampments at Nahda Square near Cairo University. But protesters at the larger camp around the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the northeastern suburb of Nasr City remained defiant but seemed to be under siege by vastly superior forces seeking to uproot them.

Pro-Morsi demonstrators from outside the larger camp, meanwhile, clashed with the police on its approaches, braving waves of tear gas to barricade streets. Some protesters prepared gasoline bombs and broke paving stones to hurl at their adversaries as the confrontation unfolded.

The clashes illuminated the deepening fissures in Egypt between an Islamist movement sustained by the Muslim Brotherhood in support of Mr. Morsi and secular forces who cast the military as protectors. The operation also threatened to reinforce regional tensions with Turkey, whose Islamist-backed government opposed the overthrow of Mr. Morsi. The “armed intervention on civilians, on people demonstrating” was “completely unacceptable,” in the words of President Abdullah Gul.

News agencies reported clashes between civilian supporters and foes of Mr. Morsi in other parts of Cairo. An Egyptian human rights group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the crackdown had spurred counterattacks by Muslim Brotherhood supporters against Coptic Christian churches in Minya and Sohag, south of Cairo, apparently reflecting a perception among Islamists that the Coptic minority had supported the military’s action in ousting Mr. Morsi in early July.

As demonstrations spread to other cities on Wednesday, television footage from the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and Aswan in the south showed thousands of Morsi supporters taking to the streets to protest the military action in Cairo. The authorities were reported to have suspended rail services in and out of Cairo to prevent pro-Morsi demonstrators from regrouping or summoning reinforcements.

The coordinated action against the Morsi supporters, which had been expected for days, began around 7 a.m. local time. The protesters are seeking the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi, who became Egypt’s first democratically elected president in 2012 and was deposed by the military six weeks ago. In removing Mr. Morsi, the military also suspended the Constitution and installed an interim government presided over by a senior jurist. 

A statement from the interim government praised the security forces for showing what it called self-restraint and blaming leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood for inciting violence. “The government holds these leaders fully responsible for any spilled blood, and for all the rioting and violence going on,” the statement said, according to Reuters. 

The interim authorities also pledged to pursue a military-based political blueprint for the country’s future in “a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation.” 

But in a further sign of the rift between faith and political power, Al Azhar, the pre-eminent Muslim religious authority, said it had no advance knowledge that the authorities would use aggressive means to disperse the protesters. A statement cited by Agence France-Presse called on all sides to “exercise self-restraint and take into account the interests of the nation” and said the “use of violence has never been an alternative to a political solution.” 

The statement followed hours of clashes after army bulldozers moved in to dismantle the defenses set up by protesters.

Images on Al Jazeera television showed a car ablaze and protesters being treated for bloody injuries. Protesters’ tents appeared to have been razed, and a pillar of black smoke rose above palm trees in one of the areas. The footage showed what appeared to be a gunman firing from a rooftop, but the shooter’s identity was not immediately clear.

At Nahda Square, black-uniformed police wearing gas masks and helmets dragged and carried away protesters, the footage showed. At least one of the protesters showed no sign of life as his limp body was loaded into an ambulance. The police seemed to be rounding up protesters in groups as they fled the barrages of tear gas. The footage also showed smoke from burning tires.

State television broadcast images of what it said was a protester firing on security forces with an assault rifle.

An Associated Press television video journalist at the larger of the camps at Nasr City said he heard women screaming as a cloud of white smoke hung over the site in eastern Cairo.

Mohamed Soltan, a representative of protesters there, told Al Jazeera that a cameraman working with the protesters had been shot and killed by a sniper while filming on a stage. There was no official confirmation of the shooting. 

According to a recent visitor, the camp in Nasr City was always likely to present the authorities with a greater challenge. Tens of thousands of people have built a well-equipped community there with electricity, Internet access, a hospital, communal kitchens, latrines and showers.

Though dozens of people have been killed by the police and the military since the sit-ins began, analysts said, the crackdowns on the protesters seemed to have reinforced their conviction to stay.

Mr. Morsi is being held at an undisclosed location. The military authorities have taken steps toward his criminal prosecution on charges relating to his activities during the revolution that ousted his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

While Egyptians broadly consider Mr. Mubarak’s autocracy to have been fundamentally illegitimate, Mr. Morsi is now under investigation for his own escape from political imprisonment and his work in the Islamist political opposition that helped to topple Mr. Mubarak in 2011.

----
David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from London. Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Cairo.

Journalists from Somalia Abdalle Ahmed Mumin is in Winners and Finalists for German Development Media Award 2013

German Development Media Award 2013 went to Mr. Abdalle Ahmed Mumin Abdalle Ahmed Mumin from Somalia for his outstanding reporting on human rights and development

Mr. Abdalle Ahmed Mumin Abdalle Ahmed Mumin was born in Kismayo, Somalia in 1984 and got a bachelor's degree in social sciences from the University of Somalia in the capital Mogadishu. Before beginning his media career, he worked as an English teacher and youth activist. In 2001, he began writing articles for a local newspaper, mainly focusing on social affairs. He also spent time working at several radio stations.

Today Mumin is a freelance journalist based in the capital and passionately involved in activism around media freedom and human rights.

His photograph was taken at a protest held by Somali journalists against the detention and killing of their colleagues. The reporters stand or sit with strips of tape across their mouths, on which they have drawn a large X. The demonstration followed the arrest of a reporter who interviewed a woman raped by government forces. Police officials had claimed the interview was "false" and aimed only to discredit government institutions. In 2012, 18 journalists were killed in Somalia while more than 28 were wounded, making the country one of the most dangerous places on earth to work in the media.

"The most dangerous place for journalists in the world”, Mogadishu, Somalia

About the Award

Honoring outstanding reporting on human rights and development

The German Development Media Awards recognize excellence in human rights and development journalism. The awards champion independent media across the world and put the spotlight on journalists telling important stories affecting their communities, countries and regions.

These awards are a new initiative by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Germany's international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.

The BMZ has a proud tradition of honoring German journalists who focus on international development issues. Now, in partnership with Deutsche Welle, the new German Media Development Awards are also open to journalists from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

The German Development Media Awards aim to support the work of talented journalists around the world and to emphasize the role of human rights and development in strengthening democracy, good governance, civil society and freedom of the press. 

On 14 August 2013 Watch the live video stream of the awards ceremony will commence at 18:30 MEST.