Press Advisory:

For Immediate Release

Contact Amin Mahmoud

Email: aeamisr@hotmail.com

Phone: 202-276-4940

Egyptian Americans Condemning Violence against

Egyptian Civilian Peaceful Demonstrators by SCAF

For Immediate Release November 23, 2011

The shocking violence Egypt has witnessed over the past few days targeting protesters proves that Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) has made only empty promises to deliver on Egypt's revolutionary demands, including improving human rights and transitioning to democratic civilian governance within a reasonable timetable, undermining its claims that it does not seek to stay in power. The SCAF has continued the tradition of repressive rule which the January 25 revolution fought valiantly and peacefully to end, and which sought to restore dignity to all Egyptians.  Nine months later, this dignity continues to be undermined in the most brutal ways at the hands of the SCAF, the self-proclaimed "revolutionary government."

Since November 18, peaceful demonstrations have been calling for the amelioration of many of SCAF's practices since it assumed executive power after Mubarak's ouster.  Those calls included an immediate end to the military prosecution of civilians and a clear timetable for transition to a civilian executive authority.  But SCAF's brutal and heavy-handed security response to those protests bore and continues to bear all the hallmarks of the police state of the Mubarak era, resulting in the escalation of the protests and an increase in the ceiling of demands by Egyptians, who now seek the immediate handoff of power to a civilian authority and a definitive end to military rule.  

The use of disproportional violence by the security forces in the last three days, including possibly means deemed illicit by international law such as incapacitating nerve gas, has thus far resulted in a reported 35 deaths and over 2,500 injured.  Since SCAF assumed power in February of this year, over 12,000 civilians have been tried in military tribunals that do not meet minimum standards of due process, female protesters have been subjected to degrading "virginity tests," Mubarak's notorious emergency law (suspending basic constitutional protections) has been extended, and numerous laws restricting freedom of assembly and even criminalizing criticism of the military have been opaquely passed and enforced in draconian fashion.  Local rights groups have been decrying these abuses and more, including the SCAF's pre-election conduct which observers accurately note portends substantial fraud in upcoming elections. 

After these governance failures and more, including gross mismanagement of Egypt's economy, leading to the increased suffering of Egypt's poor, Egyptians have now again come together in Tahrir and across the country to demand the immediate end of the military regime. It is in the vital interests of the United States that it not fall into the trap it did with Mubarak in implicitly supporting the brutal suppression of the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian people.  The United States continues to be the principal supplier of the Egyptian military, and this role is being noted and decried within Egypt, lending to decreased credibility for the United States among Egyptians.  As Egyptian Americans, we request that the US cease support of the current military regime which does not respect basic human rights and which has demonstrated its inability to peacefully manage Egypt's transition and lead the country to democratic transition. We join our brothers and sisters in Egypt in calling for an immediate transfer of power to a civilian authority.

Signatories: Coalition of Egyptian Organizations, Democracy for Egypt, Egypt Conference, and many more.