Anti-Coup Alliance slams Rabea report in Istanbul presser

The Anti-Coup Alliance held a press conference Wednesday in Istanbul responding to the National Council for Human Rights report on the dispersal of the pro-Mohamed Morsi sit-in at Rabea al-Adaweya on August 14 last year.

The alliance, a pro-Brotherhood coalition established after Morsi’s ouster, put the death toll from the dispersal at 1182, adding that doctors, paramedics and journalists were among the dead. Five thousand were injured and 350 remain missing, they assert.

The report of National Council for Human Rights, issued on Monday, puts the number of fatalities at 632, including eight policemen. Their report blames supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood who took part in the Rabea al-Adaweya sit-in last July and August for the ensuing violence.

Lawyer Nizar Ghorab spoke at the conference. The Freedom and Justice online portal reported that he said the HCHR report was supportive of the current government and “aimed to confuse the facts and mislead.”

Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood’s official English online site, described the NCHR report as “full of lies” and said that the “coup commander” responsible for the deaths at Rabea “will blame each of his collaborators personally for committing these massacres in an attempt to evade legal prosecution at home and abroad.”

On Tuesday, a conference organized by the alliance at the Istiqlal Party headquarters was raided minutes ahead of a planned press conference by the alliance.

Head of the party and member of the alliance, Magdy Ahmed Hussein, addressed the conference in Istanbul via Skype, saying that the government is “afraid of the word of truth,” and asserting that holding the conference outside of Egypt shows that the truth cannot be silenced.