An official Egyptian government report was leaked earlier this week effectively letting the cat out of the bag on the Egyptian military’s sordid actions during the Mubarak-era revolution, and their involvement in torture and killings of protesters.
The report, from a Morsi government commission, revealed specific atrocities by the military leadership, including ordering army doctors to perform surgery on captured protesters without anesthesia or sterilization of the equipment.
So the Egyptian Army leadership is doing what officials often do when caught out in dramatic human rights violations, they are issuing shrill and increasingly ridiculous denials about them.
Army Chief Gen. Abdel al-Sissi says that not only is all of the information in the report wholly untrue, but that he “swears by God” that the Egyptian Army hasn’t killed anyone since January 2011, a readily disproven claim.
Sissi followed up his protestations of innocence with overt threats, insisting that anyone who doesn’t believe him “must really watch out before defaming the military,” promising to move against anyone who they perceive as “slandering” them.