Rights group calls for probe into suspicious Muslim Brotherhood deaths in Cairo

NEW YORK - A US-based human rights group has called for an investigation into the deaths of some 13 members of the Muslim Brotherhood at the hands of Egyptian security forces in Cairo on Wednesday.

 

Neil Hicks, an Egypt expert with the pressure group Human Rights First, told Middle East Eye that the raid on an apartment in Egypt’s capital could represent an escalation of a government clampdown against its Brotherhood rivals.

 

“It looks like a very serious escalation and, obviously, there are conflicting claims from the authorities and from the Brotherhood at the moment, so the first thing is a need for an impartial investigation to find out exactly what happened,” Hicks told MEE.

 

“If it is the case that these were unarmed members of the Brotherhood, not plotting an armed attack on the state, then this is a very serious escalation of the government’s clampdown on the Brotherhood and would indicate that they are moving from a phase where they carry out mass arrests to a phase where they start killing people.”

 

Two other global watchdogs – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – together with the US State Department, told MEE that they were also assessing the raid by security forces in the Sixth of October area of Cairo.

 

Initial media reports said that nine men were killed but pro-Brotherhood Mekameleen TV later said that 13 were killed. Separate media reports claimed that former parliamentarian Nasser al-Hafi and Abdel-Fattah Mohamed Ibrahim, a Brotherhood leader from the Giza area, were among the dead.

 

A state security official said the Brotherhood members were “armed militants” who were hid in a den in the flat. The official said the group opened fire first and that the 13 men died in an ensuing shootout. The bodies were moved to a morgue.

 

But spokespeople from the Islamist group said the men had been executed and were advocates from a legal team for jailed MB supporters and members of a committee that helped the families of those killed or detained.

 

“The relatives of those killed today confirmed they were arrested in the morning before they were killed in cold blood later on with no resistance from their side,” a Brotherhood member said. 

 

“The photos of the slain members of the Muslim Brotherhood killed today show ink marks of fingerprints at their fingertips, which means their fingerprints had been taken from them as part of their official arrest before they were killed; also there were no signs of bullets on the room’s wall or furniture, only bullets in the bodies of those killed."

 

The group released photos of some of the slain men, which are being widely shared on social media, that they say shows ink on their hands. 

 

MB spokesperson Mohamed Montaser said the lawyers were “executed” and blamed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the deaths.

 

“The leaders that were executed in the flat were in a meeting,” he said. “They were unarmed, and talk about them clashing with the security is a lie.”

 

Egypt has been dogged by instability since Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown in a military coup on 3 July, 2013.

 

Since Morsi’s ouster, Egyptian authorities have carried out a crackdown on dissent that has mainly targeted the former president’s supporters, leaving hundreds dead and thousands behind bars. Scores of Brotherhood leaders and members, including Morsi, have been sentenced to death.

 

According to Hicks, the government crackdown on the Brotherhood worsens Egypt’s prospects.

 

“Our major concern is that Sisi is disregarding the rule of law and human rights and we believe that in doing that he makes the situation worse by adding fuel to the fire,” he told MEE.

 

“We see the security situation worsening and terrorist attacks and political violence increasing. This is very negative for Egypt’s trajectory, it sets back economic development and the growth of a more inclusive political process.”