Sunday, June 13, 2010

Khaled Mohammed Said: Another Casualty of Egyptian Police Brutality

When will the government of Egypt put an end to police brutality and utter disregard for human dignity and security of persons? Today, I read the story of a 28-year-old Egyptian who was tortured to death by plain-clothes Egyptian security forces in the City of Alexandria, also known as the "Pearl of the Mediterranean". His name was Khaled Mohammed Said.


Although there are varying accounts of his death, all accounts point to the fact that Khaled Mohammed Said was killed in a cyber cafe in the city of Alexandria.

According to Amnesty International, the killing took place on 6 June 2010. Khaled was brutally beaten by two plain-clothes security forces in a cyber cafe in Alexandria. He was later dragged out of the cyber cafe, and tortured to death. Police later told his relatives that he died from an overdose of narcotics.

Other sources reveal that Khaled was brutalised in the full glare of shocked eyewitnesses.

An investigation into the death of Khaled Mohammed Said is on-going, and Amnesty International has called on the government to move quickly to bring the perpetrators of this brutal killing to justice. Failure to carry out a thorough investigation will send a wrong message to perpetrators of such barbarism and gross disrespect for human life.

Khaled Mohammed Said is, unfortunately, another casualty of Egyptian police brutality. It remains to be seen whether the government of Egypt will end the culture of impunity enjoyed by abusive Egyptian state agents - many of whom abuse the people they should protect. Impunity can be brought to an end by cracking down on the two security forces who engineered the premature death of an unsuspecting citizen - Khaled Mohammed Said.

Shocking images of the battered corpse of Khaled Mohammed Said have surfaced, and can be viewed, here. Viewer discretion is advised.

Egypt clearly has an appalling human rights record.

By the way, Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, a young human rights activist, and many other activists are still locked away in Egyptian jails.

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