Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed

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Khaled Mohamed Saeed (Arabic: خالد محمد سعيد Template:IPA-arz; January 27, 1982 – June 6, 2010, age 28) was a young Egyptian man who was beaten to death by Egyptian police officers in the Wikipedia:Sidi Gaber area of Wikipedia:Alexandria on June 6, 2010. In October 2011, two Egyptian police officers were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison for beating Saeed to death.

27 Jan, 1982 - June 6, 2010

Photos of his disfigured corpse spread throughout online communities, as (what were at the time) allegations that he was beaten to death by Egyptian security forces incited outrage. A prominent Wikipedia:Facebook group, "We are all Khaled Said", moderated by Wikipedia:Wael Ghonim, brought attention to his death and contributed to growing discontent in the weeks leading up to the Wikipedia:Egyptian Revolution of 2011.

Non-civilian attack on civilian, Coordinates 31.220278 x 29.941667 June 6, 2010

Personal life

Saeed was raised by his mother and the rest of his extended family after the death of his father when he was young. Showing an interest in computers, he stayed for some time and studied computer programming in the United States. He also loved music and had been composing a musical piece before his death.

Death

Political cartoon of Saeed and a tiny Wikipedia:Hosni Mubarak, published during the Wikipedia:2011 Egyptian protests

On June 6, 2010, Saeed had been sitting on the second floor of a Wikipedia:cybercafe. Two detectives from the Wikipedia:Sidi Gaber police station entered the premises and arrested him, beating him and smashing him against objects as he was led outside to their police car.

Two police officers were later jailed for four days pending questioning on beatings that they allegedly carried out on Saeed. Saeed's family members stated that Saeed was "tortured to death for possessing video material that implicates members of the police in a drug deal."

The photo of Saeed's corpse was released onto the internet in June of 2010, causing a large outcry and the creation of a FacebookWP memorial page for Saeed that has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers. It was only because of the photo and the heavy amount of international criticism that arose from the incident that the Egyptian government consented to a trial for the two detectives involved in his death.

Multiple witnesses testified that Saeed was beaten to death by the police, who hit him and smashed him against objects as he was led outside to their police car. The owner of the internet cafe in which Saeed was arrested stated that he witnessed Saeed being beaten to death in the doorway of the building across the street after the detectives took him out of the cafe at the owner's request.

'We thought they would just interrogate him or ask him questions. But they took him as he struggled with his hands behind his back and banged his head against the marble table inside here,' Mosbah said in an interview conducted by a journalist from the liberal opposition al-Ghad newspaper. Mosbah said he told the police to take it outside and they hauled Said into the doorway of a nearby building. He did not emerge alive, said the cafe owner.

During an interview with the opposition party, El-Ghad's, newspaper, Mosbah described, "They dragged him to the adjacent building and banged his head against an iron door, the steps of the staircase and walls of the building...Two doctors happened to be there and tried in vain to revive him but (the police) continued beating him...They continued to beat him even when he was dead". This description given by the owner was confirmed by the Wikipedia:Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.

Former chief medical examiner of Egypt, Ayman Fouda, was interviewed about the proper procedure that should have been followed for Saeed's autopsy. He stated that the "mechanics of the injuries" that Saeed had sustained should have been investigated and his brain should have also been tested to see whether he had had a concussion, as the medical examiner that had conducted the autopsy had done neither.

The police reported that Saeed suffocated in an attempt to swallow a packet of Wikipedia:hashish, a claim supported by two autopsy reports made by Forensic Authorities. The police further stated that Saeed was "wanted for theft and weapons possession and that he resisted arrest."

Post-mortem photographs go viral

Wikipedia:Post mortem imagery of Khaled Saeed's corpse in the morgue went viral, becoming "The Face That Launched a Revolution" according to media.

When Saaed's family visited his body in the morgue, his brother snapped pictures of the corpse using his mobile phone. The photo of Saeed's corpse was released onto the internet by Saeed's family in June 2010, causing a large outcry. Wikipedia:Human Rights Watch released a press report about the photo that stated, "Photos of Said's battered and deformed face published on the internet show a fractured skull, dislocated jaw, broken nose, and numerous other signs of trauma" and also that the image clearly showed "strong evidence that plainclothes security officers beat him in a vicious and public manner."

We are all Khaled Said

Among those who saw the photo, was Google marketing executive Wikipedia:Wael Ghonim. Ghonim was located in Wikipedia:Dubai at the time of the incident and decided to create a Wikipedia:Facebook memorial page for Saeed, called "We are all Khaled Said". The page attracted hundreds of thousands of followers, becoming Egypt's biggest dissident Facebook page. Support for Saeed rapidly spread, with many Facebook members using his photograph for their own profiles.

Because of the photo and the heavy amount of international criticism that arose from the incident, the Egyptian government consented to a trial for the two detectives involved in his death.

Alexandria protests

On June 25, 2010, Wikipedia:Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the Wikipedia:International Atomic Energy Agency, led a rally in Alexandria against alleged abuses by the police and visited Saeed's family to offer condolences. Protests over Saeed's death also occurred in Cairo's Wikipedia:Tahrir Square and in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Wikipedia:London. Thirty of the protesters in Tahrir Square were arrested by Central Security officers after the "security personnel vigorously beat back the crowds to keep them from reaching the ministry building."

Impact on the 2011 Egyptian revolution

See also: 2011 Egyptian protests

One of the earliest pre-revolution articles to link the death of Saeed to an imminent nationwide explosion came from Saeed's neighbor, Egyptian-Australian Amro Ali. In an opinion piece titled "Egypt's Collision Course with History", Ali writes an intimate portrayal of Saeed and the Alexandria context, as well as the ramifications of his death for the regime. Ali states "Saeed’s tragedy is Egypt’s tragedy. A young man, neither a political activist nor religious radical, but an ordinary Egyptian whose accused actions could not in any way warrant his lynching. Saeed was someone’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s friend, someone’s neighbour, someone’s customer, and if not for what had happened, someone’s future. Saeed was, in the local vernacular, a son of Cleopatra [Saeed's suburb]. Yet the system that was supposed to protect him and give him his rights, took away those rights by taking away his life...It is one extra nail in the coffin of the ever-widening gulf between the ruler and ruled...What the Egyptian establishment maybe forgetting...is that pigeons come home to roost more than once".

While the actual impact of Ghonim's site cannot be determined, it was Ghonim who first published a call to protest on January 25, to the followers of his blog, and protesters carried banners and posters displaying the photograph of Saaed's corpse. This has been named one of the catalysts of the Wikipedia:2011 Egyptian protests, as an instance in which people formed a community around opposition to police brutality and, by extension, other government abuses. On February 11, 2011, these protests resulted in the resignation of Wikipedia:Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power. Wikipedia:ABC News characterized Saaed in his morgue photo as "The Face That Launched a Revolution". The Washington Post wrote that "Had it not been for a leaked morgue photo of his mangled corpse, tenacious relatives and the power of Facebook, the death of Khaled Said would have become a footnote in the annals of Egyptian police brutality. Instead, outrage over the beating death of the 28-year-old man in this coastal city last summer, and attempts by local authorities to cover it up, helped spark the mass protests demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak."

Investigation and trial of the police officers

The investigation into Saeed's death yielded 300 papers, analysis and testimony which informed the decision to charge both police officers, Mahmoud Salah Mahmoud and Awad Ismael Suleiman, in criminal court with use of violence and unjustified detention of the victim. They were detained in July 2010, and the trial began in July but was postponed and did not resume until February 2011 when it was postponed again.

On 24 September 2011 Alexandria's criminal court adjourned the trial until 22 October 2011 as Judge Moussa al-Nahrawy decided to postpone the case to allow both the plaintiff’s and the defendants’ lawyers to review the report of a third forensic committee, whose formation the court had ordered in June 2011.

On 26 October 2011, both plaintiffs were found guilty of manslaughter and were sentenced to seven years. Human rights activists, such as the Wikipedia:Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, objected to the short sentences. The two officers were convicted of using excessive force which killed Saeed but were not convicted of the more serious charge of "torture with the purpose of killing" which is a capital crime. Organizations such as the Wikipedia:April 6 Youth Movement and the Wikipedia:25 Revolution Youth Union also criticized the verdict for its leniency.

See also

AP

• 2011 Egyptian media censorship
• Self-immolation in North African protests

WP

• Wikipedia:2011 Egyptian protests
• Wikipedia:Mohamed Bouazizi

Iran

• Wikipedia:Death of Neda Agha-Soltan

Other

• Wikipedia:Death of Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb
• Wikipedia:Death of Ali Jawad al-Sheikh

External links

• Hassan Nafaa (June 15, 2010). "The Alexandria crime's political significance". Wikipedia:Almasry Alyoum. http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/49278. Retrieved January 26, 2011.
• "Egyptian citizen tortured to death". April 6 Youth Movement. July 5, 2010. http://6april.org/english/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1. Retrieved February 4, 2011.
• We are all Khaled Said on Wikipedia:Facebook

Further reading

• Hassan Nafaa (June 15, 2010). "The Alexandria crime's political significance". Almasry Alyoum. http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/opinion/alexandria-crimes-political-significance. Retrieved January 26, 2011.arz:خالد سعيد