Human rights organisations demand new Port Said probe

Violence broke out in response to 21 death sentences on January 26 Cairo – Akram Ali Four Egyptian and international human rights organisations have demanded renewed investigations into violent clashes that broke out in Port Said on January 26, after 21 Masry supporters were sentenced to death for their alleged role in the February 2012 Port Said football massacre.
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), the Alkarama Foundation and Human Rights Watch released a joint statement on Saturday demanding an independent inquiry into the violence.
Investigations should “fully examine police responsibility for unlawful killings,” the statement said.
Human Rights Watch's Middle East director Sarah Leah Watson said: "President Mohammed Morsi should publicly acknowledge that the police's right to use lethal force is not unlimited, even when they come under attack.”
"A lack of police reform, Mubarak-era laws that effectively give the police a free hand to use lethal force, and the lack of accountability mean we are seeing this kind of excessive response again and again,” Watson claimed.
Human rights group want to see inquiries into allegations of arbitrary detention and torture, after an earlier “handicapped investigation” did not allow prosecutors to visit protest sites or oversee autopsies.
"Most ominously, prosecutors failed to summon a single police officer for interrogation in connection with the police response, interrogating only the 36 residents arrested so far on charges of possession and use of firearms," a Human Rights Watch report said.
Researchers from the four groups visited Port Said for three days from January 27, collecting eyewitness evidence, visiting hospitals, and interviewing medical staff, forensic experts, the injured, and victims’ families.
Initial investigations found unidentified men had fired on police outside the Port Said prison on January 26.
Police responded by firing live ammunition on protesters from the prison roof. The death toll by the end of the morning was 28, including two police officers.
"The Port Said events are a stark reminder of the desperate need to reform the police, starting with public and independent investigations into the Port Said killings," said CIHRS deputy director Ziad Abdel Tawab.
“Unless there is sufficient political will to condemn such events and ensure accountability, the vicious cycle of excessive response and indiscriminate use of lethal force by the police to violence will continue,” he added.