Thank you for joining us at the Project on Middle East Democracy offices:

Monday, August 20, 2018
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
1730 Rhode Island Avenue, Suite 617
Washington, DC 20036

Featuring:

Amy Austin Holmes
Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center;
Visiting Scholar, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Michael Page
Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Division,
Human Rights Watch

Mohamed Soltan
Co-founder,
Freedom Initiative

 
Moderator:

Andrew Miller
Deputy Director for Policy, POMED;
Former White House and State Department Middle East Official

Background

August 14 marked the fifth anniversary of the massacre at Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiyya and al-Nahda Squares, in which Egyptian security forces, while President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was serving as minister of defense, killed over 800 demonstrators and injured several thousand more. As Human Rights Watch reported in its definitive account, “the indiscriminate and deliberate use of lethal force resulted in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history.”

POMED hosted an expert panel that discussed the massacre, the repressive and violent regime it foreshadowed, and Egypt’s future political trajectory. Panelist Mohamed Soltan was an eyewitness to the massacre, and Amy Austin Holmes visited Rabaa Square the night before and took photos, which she will show at the event. Michael Page will also offer his thoughts on the day and its enduring significance, drawing on Human Rights Watch’s extensive research into the massacre.

Arabic (courtesy of Al Jazeera)

English

 

Photos from the event are available here.