Senior Egyptian army doctors were ordered to operate without anaesthetic on wounded protesters at a military hospital in Cairo during protests against military rule, according to an investigation commissioned by president Mohamed Morsi. The report into military and police malpractice since 2011 also alleges that doctors, soldiers and medics assaulted protesters inside the hospital, the Guardian newspaper revealed Friday. The findings, which relate to the army's behaviour during the Abbassiya clashes in May 2012, are the latest leak to the Guardian of a suppressed report investigating human rights abuses in Egypt since the start of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Earlier leaks, reported yesterday by the same paper, alleged that the military were involved in torture, killings and forced disappearances during the uprising. The new chapter contains testimony from doctors and protesters about the treatment of injured demonstrators at the Kobri el-Qoba military hospital in Cairo in May 2012. It alleges that a senior military doctor ordered subordinates to operate on wounded protesters without anaesthetic or sterilisation and reports that doctors, nurses and senior officers also beat some of the wounded protesters, the daily added. It also claims that a senior officer ordered soldiers to lock protesters in a basement. The chapter concludes by recommending an investigation into the highest echelons of the army leadership - a deeply significant development. Even though the report has not been officially published, its status as a presidential document - coupled with the extent of its conclusions - represents the first acknowledgment by the state of the scale of the atrocities both during and since the 2011 uprising. Until today, there has been no official state acknowledgement of excessive force on the part of the police or military. The army has always said they took the side of protesters and never fired a bullet against them. This report is the first time that there has been any official condemnation of the military's responsibility for torture, killing, or disappearances, the Guardian noted.
