Egyptian woman, killed for laying flowers, buried

This video says about itself:

Egyptian Female Activist Shaima al-Sabbagh Killed By Police In Tahrir Square Protest

24 January 2015

Shocking moment: female socialist activist is gunned down by police during demonstrations on 4th anniversary of Arab Spring against Hosni Mubarak

A woman was killed on Saturday in Cairo after the police fired shotgun pellets at a handful of socialist activists marching to Tahrir Square with flowers to commemorate the hundreds of demonstrators killed there during the revolution that began on Jan 25 2011 witnesses said.

A health ministry spokesman said Shaima al-Sabbagh died of birdshot wounds, which fellow protesters said were fired by police to disperse the march. Al Sabbagh who was said to be … with a five year old son, was shot while she peacefully marched towards the Tahrir Square to lay a commemorative wreath of roses.

Egyptian activists shared graphic images of Ms. Sabbagh’s last moments on social networks Photographs and video recorded before the police moved in seemed to show the protesters, including Ms Sabbagh, standing peacefully outside the Air France KLM office in Talaat Harb Square near Tahrir. As officers charged at the protesters guns drawn shots rang out and Ms. Sabbagh fell to the pavement. Al-Sabbagh was taken to a hospital where she was declared dead.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Cairo protests: 15 killed in Egypt in clashes with police as more than a thousand protesters mourn young mother Shaima al-Sabbagh

Officials confirm the 32-year-old was shot in the face and back

Adam Withnall

Sunday 25 January 2015

A young mother is among four activists who have been killed in clashes with police in two days of protesting in Egypt to mark the four-year anniversary of the Arab Spring.

Officials have confirmed that 32-year-old Shaima al-Sabbagh was shot dead on Saturday as she joined a march to lay flowers in Tahrir Square, the symbolic heart of the 2011 revolt that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Ms Sabbagh was hit in the face and back by birdshot pellets, designed as a “non-lethal” crowd control tool to scatter from a single pellet when fired using a shotgun.

Her death has been met with outrage across Egypt, and about 1,000 people marched in her funeral procession early on Sunday. She leaves behind a five-year-old son.

“Shaima was killed in cold blood,” said Medhat al-Zahid, vice president of the Socialist Popular Alliance party of which Ms Sabbagh was a member.

Interior Ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif said an investigation into her death had begun, adding: “No one is above the law.”

Three more protesters were killed on Sunday as anger flared in response to Saturday’s killing, with security sources also attributing the deaths to birdshot pellets.

Officials told Reuters a 52-year-old man was shot in Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, while two protesters were killed in the Cairo suburb of Matariya.

A crackdown on all forms of public assembly has made protesting much harder this year, in keeping with the harsh laws against dissent enacted by former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

…

Today’s anniversary represented a test as to whether liberal activists and Islamists alike would have the resolve to challenge the new US-backed government once again.

Egyptian security forces killed at least 18 demonstrators and wounded at least 80 more Sunday as protests rocked Cairo, Giza, Kafr al-Sheikh and Menya: here.

Women protested in Cairo yesterday at the killing of Shaimaa Sabbagh and the alleged killing of around 25 other activists by security forces at recent rallies: here.

An Egyptian court confirmed death sentences against 183 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Monday, marking the culmination of yet another historic mass show trial by the US-backed military regime: here.

THE Sinai Peninsula has moved from the margins of the Egyptian body politic to the uncontested center, as Egypt’s strong man President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi finds himself greatly undercut by the rise of an insurgency that seems to be growing stronger with time. Another series of deadly and co-ordinated attacks, on Saturday, shattered the Egyptian army’s confidence, pushing it further into a deadly course of a war that can only be won by political sagacity, not bigger guns: here.

On February 12, returning from talks in Minsk over the civil war in east Ukraine, French President François Hollande announced the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets to the bloody regime of Egyptian dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Along with other prospective sales, it will make the Egyptian dictatorship France’s biggest arms client in 2015: here.