After Three Days of Brutal Violence Against Demonstrators: Egyptian Rights Organizations Demand Indictment of Leading Security Officers

The list includes leading officers from the Ministry of Interior, including al-Essawi and Sidhom; and from the Military Police, Badeen, al-Ruwaini... The government's resignation and acceptance of 'political responsibility' will not absolve those accused of killing and wounding hundreds

Five human rights organizations said today that the past three days' brutal attacks on demonstrators, carried out by the Interior Ministry's security forces and military police forces under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Ismailiya, Assyut, and other cities, constitute criminal offences. These offences are without a statute of limitations and the perpetrators and instigators must be brought before criminal trials.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, El-Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, and the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information pledged to continue to identify the civilian and military officials involved in killing demonstrators, bursting their eyes and breaking their bones and skulls. These crimes have been extensively documented by these organizations and by the media over the past few days.

The signatory organizations stated that the list of officials it plans to prosecute so far includes: General Mansour al-Essawi, Minister of the Interior; General Sami Sidhom, Assistant Interior Minister for the Security Sector; General Emad al-Din al-Wakil, Assistant Interior Minister for the Central Security Forces; General Hamdy Badeen, head of the military police; and General Hasan al-Ruwaini, commander of the central military district. This is in addition to other civilian and military officials in a number of other cities which have seen similar criminal offences against demonstrators.

The above organizations also emphasized that if those responsible for these crimes are not urgently brought to trial, it will be proof that the Egyptian judicial system is unable or unwilling to achieve justice. This opens the door for their prosecution in front of international courts for the crimes for which they have not been held accountable.

The signatory organizations denounced the fallacious statements made by military officials to the media yesterday, in which they claimed that the role of the military police was limited to securing the Interior Ministry building without engaging with demonstrators. The organizations confirmed that their representatives had themselves witnessed military police forces storming Tahrir Square at around 5pm on Sunday 20th November and brutally assaulting demonstrators with batons, before setting fire to tents and demonstrators' belongings, along with a number of motorbikes. Video clips broadcast on the al-Masry al-Youm website and al-Jazeera Live Egypt show members of the military and civilian police attacking unarmed demonstrators from three sides of the square, using armed personnel carriers, tear gas bombs and batons. They show police hitting demonstrators a number of times on their heads with batons and their feet, after they had fallen to the ground, until demonstrators had completely stopped moving.

Representatives of the above organizations began gathering evidence and testimonies, in addition to their own observations, from the beginning of the attacks and excessive violence on the afternoon of Saturday 19th November. The evidence and investigations so far indicate a clear targeting by security agencies of demonstrators with intent to cau