Dissecting the Modern Egyptian State
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8966034 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Khaled Fahmy (0000-0001-7002-5906, American University in Cairo, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 559-562 |
| Publication date | 2015-07-28 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0020743815000550 |
| OpenAlex | W1800521217 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
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.”
Ancient history · Charge (physics · Officer · Political science · State (computer science · Autopsy Techniques and Outcomes · Global Security and Public Health · Health and Conflict Studies · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,3 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2021 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |