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Dissecting the Modern Egyptian State
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2015
Extract
On 24 January 2015, Shaymaʾ al-Sabbagh, a thirty-two-year-old mother of one and a member of the Egyptian Socialist People's Alliance Party, was walking with flowers in hand alongside her colleagues in a preauthorized march to Tahrir Square to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the January Revolution. Suddenly the police opened fire at close range and within a few minutes Shaymaʾ dropped dead. Despite strong evidence implicating the police, who were present at the scene in overwhelming numbers, and despite the wide circulation on social media of a video clip showing a masked policeman aiming in Shaymaʾ's direction, the attorney general initially refused to arraign the police officer in question and instead decided to charge Shaymaʾ's colleagues. After a massive public outcry, the suspected police officer was finally arraigned (although his identity was never revealed); however, he was charged not with manslaughter or excessive use of force, but with the much lesser charge of “beating that results in death.” Most crucially, the official cause of Shaymaʾ's death was slimness. In a TV interview, Dr. Hisham ʿAbd al-Hamid, the spokesperson of the Egyptian Medical Forensics Authority (EMFA), said that the birdshot that hit Shaymaʾ “was not fatal given that it was fired more than eight meters away, but since she was too skinny, the birdshot was able to penetrate her body easily and ended up hitting the lung and the heart. This is a very rare case.”
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References
NOTES
1 “Al-Tibb al-Sharʿi Yufajjir Mufajaʾa Ghariba ʿan Wafat Shaymaʾ al-Sabbagh,” accessed 13 April 2015, http://www.mbc.net/ar/programs/sabahak-masri/articles/الطب-الشرعي-يفجر-مفاجأة-غريبة-عن-وفاة–شيماء-الصباغ–.html#comment%7Clist.
2 Maggie Michael, “Mohammed El-Gindy, Egypt Activist, Tortured to Death by Police, Oppositions Says,” Huffington Post, 4 February 2013, accessed 13 April 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/mohammed-el-gindy-egypt-activist-tortured-to-death_n_2614881.html.
3 Mustafa Sulayman, “Iqalat Raʾis al-Tibb al-Sharʿi fi Misr,” Al-Arabiyya, 4 May 2011, accessed 13 April 2015, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/04/147840.html.
4 “Qadiyat Maqtal ʿAssam ʿAta Dakhil Sijin Turah,” YouTube video, televised by ONTV, posted 24 September 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TRI9Vh9B98.
5 Patrick Kingsley, “At Least 19 Dead after Police Fire on Egyptian Football Supporters,” The Guardian, 9 February 2015, accessed 13 April 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/08/zamalek-cairo-egyptian-league-14-dead.
6 “Ahali Dahaya Madhbahat Stad al-Difaʿ al-Jawi Yarfudun Istillam al-Juthath min Mashrahat Zaynhum,” YouTube video, posted by Al-Masry Al-Youm, 8 February 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K9p24N5tU0.
7 Weizman, Eyal and Keenan, Thomas, Mengele's Skull: The Advent of a Forensic Aesthetics (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012), 28Google Scholar.
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