CAIRO

A host of local and international human rights groups have urged the Egyptian authorities to form an independent fact-finding commission to investigate the August 14 mass killings in Cairo of supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

It has been almost four months since Egyptian security forces violently dispersed two major sit-ins staged by Morsi backers in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza's Nahda Square. Hundreds of demonstrators were killed and thousands injured in the dispersals.

In a joint statement issued Tuesday, which coincided with international Human Rights Day, 13 local and international rights organizations called on Egyptian authorities to launch an investigation into the bloody dispersals.

In their statement, the groups called on Egypt's interim government to "acknowledge and seriously and thoroughly investigate" August's twin mass killings.

In November, Egyptian Forensic Authority spokesman Hisham Abdel-Hamid was quoted by local media as saying that the final death toll from the two dispersals stood at 648.

This figure, claimed Abdel-Hamid, included 627 killed in the dispersal of the larger sit-in in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, along with 21 others killed in the dispersal of the Nahda Square protest camp.

The official death toll, however, remains far below that cited by the National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy, a coalition of pro-Morsi figures and groups, which says the death toll from the Rabaa sit-in alone is at least double the number announced.

"The government has not established a public record of what occurred that day, and the Office of the Public Prosecutor has yet to investigate and hold members of the security forces accountable for excessive and unjustified use of lethal force," the rights groups said.

Egypt's Justice Ministry, they added, "has yet to take any meaningful steps toward truth-seeking and justice in relation to allegations of gross human rights violations by security forces over the past three years."

The groups went on to call for the establishment of an "effective independent fact-finding committee" to determine responsibility for the deaths.

The proposed committee should have the authority to summon officials and witnesses, issue reports and make recommendations, the rights groups said.

"There can be no hope for the rule of law and political stability in Egypt, much less some modicum of justice for victims, without accountability for what may be the single biggest incident of mass killing in Egypt's recent history," said Gasser Abdel-Razek, associate director at the  Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a signatory to Tuesday's statement.

"For almost three years now, successive Egyptian governments have ignored calls for justice, as police brutality and the accompanying death toll continue to mount with each incident," Abdel-Razek added.

The rights groups asserted that they had documented the excessive use of force by security forces in breaking up the sit-ins, along with the unlawful killing of unarmed protesters. The statement went on to admit, however, that a small minority of protesters had used firearms that day.

Yet the rights groups also accused police of having "responded excessively by shooting recklessly, going far beyond what is permitted under international law, which prescribes that resorting to lethal force may occur only when strictly unavoidable  to protect life."

"Security forces failed to carry out the operation in a way that minimized the risk to life, including by ensuring safe exits and giving clear orders not to use lethal force unless strictly unavoidable to protect lives," they added.

Bahielddin Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said that the death of seven police officers during the dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in "does not justify the kind of collective punishment of hundreds of protesters and disproportionate use of lethal force that we saw that day."

The rights groups urged interim Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi to establish the fact-finding committee, which, they stressed, should work independently of both the government and military.

"Victims of human rights violations, as well as society at large, have a right to know the whole truth about past human rights violations," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Amnesty International, was quoted as saying in the report.

"After the unprecedented levels of violence and casualties seen since the ousting of Mohamed Morsi, investigations must provide real answers and cannot be another whitewash of the security forces' record," Sahraoui said.

"Egypt's authorities cannot deal with the carnage through public relations in world capitals, rewriting events and locking up Morsi's supporters," she added.

Signatories of Tuesday's statement include the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, the Center for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance, the Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights, and Human Rights Watch.

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