Dr. El-Shayyal discusses the “preliminary massacres” before the Rabaa dispersal on Al Magharibia
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The Rabaa al-Adawiya massacre did not occur as a single event within the political transformation that Egypt witnessed in 2013. Rather, it was preceded by dozens of attacks and violations by the military coup forces, perhaps the most prominent of which were the massacres of the Republican Guard Club, Al-Mansa, Bein El-Sarayat, Nasr al-Din, Maspero II, and others.
In this context, a special meeting program presented by broadcaster Samir Al-Khalidi on Al-Magharibia channel on August 9, 2018, hosted the founder of the Waaa Foundation for Research and Development, Dr. Farid Al-Shayal, to comment on what he described as the “preliminary massacres” that preceded and paved the way for the dispersal process. While highlighting the massacre of the Republican Guard Club, which was the subject of the institution’s first documentary release, and explaining the methodology of the documentation process and the mechanism of its team’s work.
In the introduction to his talk, Dr. Al-Shayyal paved the way by clarifying the meaning of documentation, and the difference between it and news reporting and eyewitness testimony, while explaining the specificity of the Republican Guard massacre and its internal and external repercussions, revealing that the encyclopedia’s work team includes 40 to 50 young people who worked on collecting and revising the encyclopedia’s materials, and their meticulous work took about a year and ten months.
Regarding the symbolism of the Guards massacre, Dr. Al-Shayyal explained the importance of the massacre and the reasons for designating it as the subject of the institution’s first documentary publication, pointing out that the shots from that massacre were an early indication of the approach that the coup regime would take against its peaceful opponents, and a prelude to internal and external public opinion for the major massacre that followed weeks later and ended with the massacre of the dispersal of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins.
Regarding the massacre of the guards, Al-Shayyal explained the circumstances of the incident, the nature of the protesters, and the motives for their participation in the demonstrations rejecting the military coup against elected President Mohamed Morsi, stressing that the security forces surprised the peaceful protesters by firing live bullets at dozens of them, which resulted – according to what the encyclopedia documented – in the fall of 140 martyrs and 811 wounded, in addition to 652 political detainees from the peaceful protesters in front of the Dar Guard, on July 5 and 8, 2013.
Dr. Al-Shayyal confirmed that the most prominent obstacles facing the documentation team were the authorities’ concealment of information and the lack of cooperation with the various documentation bodies, in addition to the difficulty of communicating with many of the victims of the massacre and their families due to the political prosecutions that affected thousands of them, and the security grip that threatens those of their families who communicate with the media and human rights documentation bodies.
Dr. Al-Shayyal also stated that dozens of victims were killed because the security forces forced their families to write down other causes of death, in addition to prosecuting those who published any data concerning them through the media or social media platforms.
Regarding the credibility of the information released, Dr. Al-Shayyal said that the work team relied on a clear methodology that requires communicating with direct sources of the stories and repeatedly corroborating their testimonies about potential witnesses to the incident, stressing that the team was able to communicate with dozens of witnesses and document their statements in video clips that are archived within the encyclopedia’s media.
Regarding the reasons for the discrepancy between the organization’s victim numbers and the official government data, Dr. Al-Shayyal said that the regime was in a dispute with the protesters, and was accused of committing the incident, which led it to deliberately reduce the extent of violations and marginalize the victims, which is something that the publication’s work team was keen to overcome through its scientific tools to collect information about victims of violations.
Dr. Al-Shayyal explained that the role of the Foundation does not stop at counting the numbers and enumerating the victims, but rather the documentation process comes within a larger plan to create popular awareness, which is the name that the Foundation has chosen for itself, noting that documentation work is considered a historical mission to preserve the complete truth and keep it resistant to forgery, distortion and alteration.
Regarding the mechanism for restoring the rights of the victims of the massacre, Al-Shayyal referred to the Egyptian regime’s measures to immunize its members accused of committing the incident and all crimes during the period of suspension of the constitution, through legal and legislative procedures, with the aim of theoretically abolishing the rights of the victims. However, he stressed that rights do not lapse by statute of limitations or neglect, and that the perpetrators will be held accountable for their crimes sooner or later.
Al-Shayyal concluded his speech by emphasizing the Foundation’s intention to complete its documentation plan to preserve the events of the region during that period through archived documents using a precise methodology that preserves for future generations the right of impartial access to the course of events.