Irina Bokova has called for a “thorough investigation” into the deaths of three Egyptian journalists “to determine the exact circumstances of the three killings.”
Bokova, head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Monday: “I deplore the deaths of Ahmed Abdel Gawad, Mosab Al-Shamy and Tamer Abdelrauf.” She also expressed her “distress and concern over the violence directed against the media in Egypt.”
Abdel Gawad and Al-Shamy were killed while covering the security forces clearing of the pro-Mohamed Morsi Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in on 14 August. Al-Akhbar reported that its employee Gawad was shot dead during the dispersal. El-Shamy worked as a photographer for Rassd alternative news agency, which said on its Facebook page at the time that it “congratulates with the utmost pride the family of photographer Mosab El-Shami, the martyr of Egyptian freedom and dignity, who was killed by the hand of betrayal while covering the Rabaa massacre at the hands of those who executed the coup.”
Al-Ahram reporter Tamer Abdelrauf was shot dead by security forces on 19 August for speeding past a military checkpoint. The armed forces claimed in a statement that Abdelrauf refused to pull over when asked; therefore the soldiers treated it as a case of “breaking the curfew.” Abdelrauf was accompanied by Hamed Al-Barbary, another journalist from Al-Gomhoria newspaper, who was detained a day after the incident for an investigation of possession of a sawed off shotgun and shotgun cartridges.
El-Barbary’s account of the incident differed to that of the armed forces. He said soldiers motioned for them to turn around and when they did the soldiers opened fire, denying that there were calls to stop or warning shots fired.
Two other journalists were reported to have been killed during the clearing of the sit-ins on 14 August. Mick Deane, a British cameraman for Sky News and Habiba Abdel Aziz, who was off duty but among the protesters in Rabaa Al-Adaweya Square, were both killed that day.
