Every year on August 14, comes the remembrance of the massacre, the crime against humanity committed by the Egyptian Police aided by the Egyptian Military, killing between 800 to 1000 citizens in Rabia Al-Adawia in nasr city and Al-Nahda square.
The killing by Egyptian forces during the dispersal of all peaceful sit-ins in 2013 was a serious violation of international human rights law and the Egyptian law without any action to conduct a serious investigation that may provide accountability against the killers of the protesters
Six years after the massacre, no national or international mechanism has moved to conduct a thorough investigation into these crimes, despite the demand sought by many human rights organizations, not to mention the dozens of complaints submitted to the relevant international mechanisms of the United Nations, or regional bodies such as the African Commission of human and peoples’ rights.
The dispersal of peaceful sit-ins in Egypt, which resulted in the killing and injury of hundreds of innocent citizens, is a crime against humanity that will not fall under the statute of limitations, as stipulated in the Convention on the Non-Statute of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity,
The signatories of this statement therefore stress the need to renew the request for an international investigation into the crimes of sit-ins dispersal in Egypt that took place in August 2013, In the same vein, we announce our full support for the action taken by a group of non-governmental human rights organizations – a request was made to the judges of the International Criminal Court, in order to activate article 12 of the Rome Statute of the Court, under which former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi authorized the international judiciary is represented in international crimes to initiate an investigation into the killings that occurred during the dispersal of the sit-ins in order to overcome the obstacle of Egypt’s failure to ratify the Rome Charter, which holds jurisdiction for the International Criminal Court
The third paragraph of Article 12 of the Rome Convention states: If the admission of a non-party State to this statute is required under paragraph 2, that State may, under a declaration filed with the Registrar of the Court, accept the court’s exercise of its jurisdiction in relation to the crime in question. The state cooperates with the Court without any delay or exception in accordance with Section 9.
Also under article 15 of the regulations, which allows the Prosecutor to conduct investigations on his own on the basis of information on offences within the jurisdiction of the court. – The Prosecutor analyses the seriousness of the information received and may, for this purpose, seek additional information from States, United Nations agencies, intergovernmental or non-governmental organizations, or any other reliable sources he deems appropriate, and may receive written or oral testimony at the The court
The murder of civilian protesters in Egypt is an extrajudicial killing, monitored and documented by several non-governmental human rights organizations, what requires an international investigation into its circumstances and accountability to all those who participated in it, whether by order or execution, in order to achieve the principle of justice and prevent impunity.
Signatories:
AFD International – Brussels
El Shehab for Human Rights (SHR) – London
Justice for human rights (JHR) – Istanbul
Human Rights Monitor (HRM) – London
Najda For Human Ritghts
Egyptian Coordination of Rights and Freedoms
Humanitarian organization – Istanbul