Egypt: Freedom and Justice Leader Dr Mohammed Beltagy

Excerpts from Freedom and Justice Leader Dr Mohammed Beltagy's Press Statement

What happened today is an unprecedented mass murder.

From 6 am until now (around 15:00 Cairo time), we've been through atrocities not even perpetrated over three weeks of Israeli war on Gaza.

What Sisi is doing is not merely the disbanding of our rally but to embroil the army, its officers and its soldiers in a civil war so that he is not alone brought to justice for war crimes.

Live bullets were shot at peaceful demonstrators from helicopters, rooftops of military installations in the neighbourhood. Victims were shot in the head, the neck, the chest and in the heart. Clearly, this was an intent to kill and not to disband.

The military is conspiring to finish off the wounded by banning ambulances from reaching them; by destroying the medicinal supplies next to the filed hospital; and by attempting to set fire to the field hospital in the hope of destroying evidence and to cover up the crimes committed so far.

Sisi realises that his coup has failed. He knows that by disbanding one rally more rallies will soon form. He is after embroiling the military brass in war crimes to unburden himself.

I appeal to army and police officers and soldiers to rid themselves of the military uniform and go home. They should not take part in these war crimes. The institutions in which they serve have lost their legitimacy and do not deserve to be served.

I appeal to all Egyptians to be true to their humanity and conscience. I do not ask you to come and defend us. We are willing to make the sacrifices and many of our own loved ones have been murdered, including my own daughter. I ask you for the sake of Egypt to take to the streets to declare this coup null and void. If you choose to remain in your homes you'll be given Sisi a chance to turn Egypt into another Syria so as to escape questioning about his crimes.

I address world conscience and public opinion, I appeal to world humanitarian and human rights organisations, I appeal to the international delegations that came to see us here in Rabaa and who testified that we were completely peaceful, do something in order to stop these war crimes.

I tell the Egyptians that the sacrifices made so far by your brothers and sisters were made in order to put an end to the military rule that humiliated the Egyptians and persecuted them for more than 60 years. They made these sacrifices in order for Egypt to become a civil state in which human dignity is sanctified and human rights and respected.

See more at: http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/6902-al-beltaji-what-happened-in-nine-hours-in-cairo-is-bigger-that-what-israel-did-to-gaza-in-22-days#sthash.RkGk2VP0.dpuf

ENDS

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