Saturday, November 26, 2011

The latest victim: Ahmed el Sayed Soroor killed this morning

After waking up I checked the newssites AlJazeera and some Egyptian ones, and was reliefed to find that no massacre had happened at night, and that apparently, for a third day in row everything was quiet and calm. Then I signed in to Twitter, looking at the thread for #Tahrir, and learnt that this morning a young man named Ahmed el Sayed Soroor had been killed in front of the cabinet. Some tweets report his dead as a consequence of the police (or: military police? Amn Markazy in Arabic) breaking up the sit-in in front of the Cabinet. Yet, a video allegedly showing the events leading to Ahmed's death, to me does not seem to show the break up of a sit-in. And also the actual chain of events remained rather unclear - yet, what sticks to the mind is the image of the blood on Ahmed's back, flowing from the wound that would kill him little later. 

Another short video shows ho a group of men carries the wounded away and eventually enters a bus, while those remaining outside shout "there is no God but God". If you want to follow latest events you can follow the threads #Tahrir and #OccupyCabinet.


In light of news like these reaching us nearly every day, for me it seems difficult to remain optimistic. But others, like Firas Al-Atraqchi, are still hopeful and see what is happening as the birth of a new Egypt. In an article for Huffington Post he speculates: "It is now that the seeds of a true revolution are being planted. Ten months ago, shortsightedness and political infighting allowed the pillars of the old regime -- the medieval Ministry of Interior and State media -- to survive.Today, however, protesters in Tahrir and other governorates have realized what it is they failed to do.By taking to the streets they are creating a new convention between the military and the people, and redefining the concepts of citizenship in their country."

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