The clearing of the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in in Cairo on Aug. 14, 2013 marked the escalation of a crackdown against supporters of overthrown Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mursi. The crackdown later expanded to include activists and politicians from across the political spectrum.
Official accounts of the dispersal, including in a state-backed TV series, have portrayed security forces responding to attacks by armed protesters after appealing to them to leave peacefully. "Egyptian authorities have failed for a decade to hold anyone accountable for the largest mass killing in Egypt's modern history," Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights , a leading independent group, said in a report that it had obtained information from an official investigation of which only the executive summary was made public, showing that authorities had considered less lethal ways of dispersing the sit-in.Supporters of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Mursi's ouster as army chief and became president in 2014, say security measures taken at the time were needed to stabilise Egypt.