CAIRO: Eleven activists were arrested for protesting the alleged killing by police of a 28-year-old man in Alexandria, lawyer at El-Nadim Center for the Rehabilitation of Violence Victims Mohamed Abdel-Aziz said Friday.
Around 70 activists protested Thursday at 11.30 pm outside Sidi Gaber police station calling for justice for Khalid Saeid, a business owner allegedly beaten to death by policemen, Abdel-Aziz told Daily News Egypt.
“The police forces [aggressively] attacked the protesters including Saeid’s cousin, injuring a number of them,” he added.
Four protesters were released while seven others were still in custody until press time.
On Tuesday, two police informants reportedly stepped into a cyber café in Cleopatra neighborhood where Saeid was a regular patron.
“The informants attempted to search Saeid [for no reason], asking him to present his ID. When he objected to their [offensive] attitude, they insulted and hit him,” the deceased’s sister, Zahra, told Daily News Egypt.
According to Abdel-Aziz, the two men grabbed Saeid to the building entrance where they beat him violently, knocking his head against the gate until he passed out.
“The police informants told the people who gathered around Khalid that he was a criminal and a drug addict who swallowed marijuana,” Saeid’s sister, Zahra, said.
“How could he scream for help, as one eye-witness said, while having a case of marijuana stuck in his throat as they claim?” his sister argued, saying that her brother never used drugs.
“Even real outlaws are not dealt with this way.”
A doctor who was sitting in a coffee shop across the street quickly examined Saeid, declaring him dead.
According to the victim’s sister, the police put Saeid’s body into a police truck and 10 minutes later they brought it back to the scene of the crime.
The police then forced a paramedic to deliver him to the morgue in an ambulance.
Saied’s family reported the incident to the prosecutor who ordered an investigation into the incident and an autopsy.
Two web pages created by activists on social network website Facebook to expose facts about Saeid’s case have gathered about 47,000 supporters so far.
