Last week saw the anniversary of the most traumatic month of recent Egyptian history. The forceful dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-ins by Egyptian security forces, and its repercussions in terms of other types of violence led by militants and sectarian attacks, was an ordeal that Egyptian society has yet to fully grasp and come to terms with. But the month of August 2013 in Egypt was not a tribulation that can simply be dismissed, in the hopes it will be forgotten. Without investigating accountability for the events of last summer, that entire month will constantly have repercussions in Egypt’s present and future. Taking up that challenge will not only ensure more responsible attitudes in the future, it will avoid the intensification of international pressure upon Egypt in the months and years to come.

In August 2013, a slew of rights groups within Egypt and outside of it expressed grave concerns about the prospects of dispersing the sit-ins by force, worried about the likelihood of civilian fatalities. Human Rights Watch (HRW) described it as “the most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history.” Their assessment converged with the appraisals of many in the international community, in addition to Egyptian civil society groups.

As a result of this pressure, the Egyptian state was forced to recognize that, regardless of the “war on terror” rhetoric that energized large parts of the Egyptian populace, there were questions that had to be addressed. The National Council of Human Rights (NCHR), a quasi-state body, revealed that hundreds of civilians were killed as a result of the dispersal. The interim President Adly Mansour called for a national fact-finding commission as a result of the NCHR’s report, implicitly recognizing that there was something to investigate. It is due to be released next month.

Unfortunately, the signs that full accountability and transparency is forthcoming for the events of August 2013 are not encouraging. The NCHR report was widely criticized by independent human rights groups for not being thorough enough. Many of these groups are already concerned about an impending deepening of restrictions against their work. When they have their own reports, such as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights report issued in June 2014, their findings don’t seem to have any impact. When HRW finally released, a year later, a full-length report of some 200 pages, condemning the dispersal as “probably amounting to crimes against humanity,” the Egyptian authorities and media responded vehemently, with accusations of bias toward the Muslim Brotherhood-led “Anti-Coup Alliance.”