CAIRO: Egypt's Supreme Military Council should take all necessary measures to end the military and security forces' use of excessive force against protesters and the mistreatment of detainees, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The council should urgently protect all government records relating to the abusive state security agency, which are crucial for holding past rights violators to account, Human Rights Watch said. Between March 4 and 6, 2011, government security forces used excessive force to break up protests outside State Security Investigations (SSI) offices and mistreated persons arrested. In Cairo's Lazoughli Square on March 6, government-backed thugs attacked demonstrators and soldiers beat those taken into military custody. In Alexandria on March 4, state security officers shot live ammunition and lobbed petrol bombs at demonstrators. “Security force attacks on demonstrators sounds like the old Egypt, not the hoped-for new Egypt,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Supreme Military Council needs to adopt urgent measures to end the misuse of force once and for all.” From March 4 to 6, demonstrators gathered outside SSI offices in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities throughout Egypt in response to reports on Twitter and Facebook that SSI officers were destroying documents, including records that might be used to hold former officials accountable for human rights violations. They sought to prevent further destruction of SSI documents and archives and to protest continued operations by the security agency, which had long been implicated in the arbitrary detention and torture of activists. Demonstrations took place at the SSI headquarters in Nasr City in Cairo, the Lazoughli Square building, and offices in at least four other Cairo neighborhoods, and at the main SSI office in Alexandria. Demonstrators also assembled in front of SSI offices in the cities of Assiut, Fayoum, and Marsa Matrouh, and in the towns of Zagazig and Qena in the Nile Delta, according to local media reports. In some areas, protesters were able to enter SSI buildings. **The above is a press release from Human Rights Watch. Read the full article here. BM
