At least 2,600 killed in Egypt since crackdown — watchdog

At least 2,600 people, nearly half of them supporters of the nation’s ousted president Mohammed Morsi, were killed in violence over an 18-month period starting June 30, 2013, the head of Egypt’s state human rights agency says.

Mohammed Fayeq, head of the National Council for Human Rights, tells reporters that 700 policemen and 550 civilians were among those killed in the period between June 30, 2013, and December 31, 2014.

On July 3, 2013, the military ousted Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. Authorities launched an ongoing crackdown on members of Morsi’s now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

At least 600 Morsi supporters were killed on a single day when security forces broke up two Cairo-based sit-in protests on August 14, 2013. Almost the entire leadership of the Brotherhood and thousands of the group’s members have been detained, along with hundreds of secular and leftist pro-democracy campaigners who were behind the 2011 uprising that toppled Morsi’s predecessor, autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Fayeq criticizes authorities for the practice of detaining suspects for an extended period pending the filing of formal charges and trial, saying it amounted to “punishment for crimes not committed.”

Holding cells at police stations, he says, were filled 400 percent above their capacity and 160 percent in prisons.

— AP