Call for U.S. Accountability in Egypt

by the Ad-Hoc Committee for U.S. Accountability in the Middle East and North Africa

September 8, 2013

Solidarity’s National Committee has endorsed the following statement.

The Ad Hoc Committee for U.S. Accountability in the Middle East and North Africa condemns the August massacre of hundreds of protesters and prisoners by the U.S.-backed Egyptian military. While currently directed at the Muslim Brotherhood, this dramatic escalation of state repression is designed to liquidate the Egyptian Revolution and restore the military-police state of the Mubarak regime. We also condemn all assaults on Egypt’s Christians, Shiites, and other minorities. The sectarian campaign only serves to block revolutionary momentum and, as in the past, further the interests of the repressive state.

The US-backed Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) continues today to wield both undue political and economic power. The State “security” apparatuses continue to be used to repress all forms of political dissent, resulting in the death, arrest, imprisonment, and torture of Egyptian revolutionary activists. The week of August 12, 2013 saw the murder of over one thousand Egyptian civilians, protestors, and pedestrians, including the slaughter of over 50 Muslim Brotherhood prisoners held in detention on August 18, 2013.

Equally alarming is the resurgence, over the past few weeks, of the intelligence apparatus that was removed from domestic Egyptian life and affairs after—and as a result of—the January 25th revolution.

The remobilization of Islamophobia and the rhetoric of “war on terror” as a means of justifying the recent slaughter of those opposed to Military rule or Mubarak-era remnants threatens the Egyptian struggle for justice and accountability for all victims of state violence at the hands of the military, from Tahrir, Maspero, Mohamed Mahmoud, Port Said, and the Presidential Palace battles, to the massacres at the Republican Guard.

We are further concerned that the Sissi-SCAF justification of state violence under the rhetoric of “fighting terrorism” will serve as a pretext for the expansion and legitimization of the U.S.-led global “war on terror” that has victimized millions around the world, including the people of the United States.

We condemn all forms of U.S. complicity in Egyptian state repression and continue to support popular Egyptian demands for an end to U.S. military aid that has for decades financed illegal killing, torture, and imprisonment under the regimes of Sadat, Mubarak and SCAF. While we do not equate the Mursi presidency with the regimes of Mubarak, Sissi, and SCAF, we acknowledge and condemn all crimes committed against the Egyptian people under the elected Mursi administration as well, including but not limited to the imprisonment, threats, and incitement of sectarian violence against the opposition. This does not however justify the gross crimes committed by the Sissi-SCAF regime.

• We condemn the illegal use of lethal violence against protesters using U.S. financed ammunition and teargas, which has left hundreds dead in recent weeks.
• We condemn all unjustified arrests and round-ups of individuals suspected of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• We condemn the arrests and threats made against human rights workers, attorneys, and all activists seeking to expose state crimes.
• We condemn Egyptian military collaboration with the U.S. and Israel in targeting the Palestinian people.
• We stand in solidarity with those opposed to the reimplementation of Emergency Law and the National Security Police, pillars of the Mubarak regime, under the dangerous pretext of “fighting terrorism.”
• We call for solidarity against all human rights infractions.
• We support the Egyptian call for an immediate transfer of power to a popularly supported civilian government.

Accordingly,

1. We demand Egyptian authorities immediately end all state violence and ensure the protection of the human rights of all Egyptians, including all prisoners.
2. We demand the U.S. government account for its role in and be held accountable for its complicity and/or collaboration in political and structural violence committed by the Egyptian State apparatus.
3. We demand an end to U.S. Aid to the Egyptian Military.
4. We demand the release of all Political Prisoners.
5. We demand an end to all sectarian attacks.

We believe that revolutionary mobilization around the principles of the Jan. 25th Egyptian Revolution—“Bread, Freedom, Social Justice, and Human Dignity”—is ongoing, and represented by the continuing struggle of workers and other activists throughout the country. U.S.-financed state repression under SCAF seeks to undermine the continuation of the true revolutionary process.

The Ad-Hoc Committee for U.S. Accountability in the Middle East and North Africa is an initiative of social justice lawyers, activists, and academics who have participated in first hand investigations of U.S. complicity in political and structural state violence throughout the MENA region. For a list of its members and list of further signatories to the above statement, see here.