The Unjust Legacy of Egypt’s Darkest Day
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood and supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi flee from tear gas and rubber bullets fired by riot police during clashes on a bridge leading to Rabaa al-Adwiya Square in Cairo on August 14, 2013
As you walk through the bustling traffic in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square today, you would never know the bloodiest incident in Egypt’s recent history had taken place there exactly two years ago, on August 14, 2013, when the dispersal by security forces of two sit-ins in Cairo and other protests across Egypt left up to 1,000 people dead in a single day.
The government has recently renamed the square after Egypt’s public prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, who was assassinated in Cairo in a car bomb on June 29. To some, he represented the state protecting its citizens, but to many others he was a symbol of repression covering up for security forces’ abuses and ordering the detention of thousands incarcerated in the authorities’ mounting crackdown on dissent over the last two years. Details
