Suez streets last week witnessed the funeral procession of the 21-year-old engineering student Ahmed Hussein Eid, who died the previous day in hospital as a result of the
Suez streets last week witnessed the funeral procession of the 21-year-old engineering student Ahmed Hussein Eid, who died the previous day in hospital as a result of the injuries he sustained in an attack by hardline Islamist Salafis. According to eyewitnesses, it was one of the most solemn funerals Suez have ever saw.
Eid, who was very popular among his friends and neighbours, was stabbed in the thigh a few days earlier as he escorted his fiancé home. Eid’s father told the Egyptian press that, while his son Ahmed was escorting his fiancé home on the evening of 25 June, and right by the Cornish Street, three bearded men on motorcycle, wearing short white ++jilbabs++, the attire for which Salafis are famous, approached the two young people. The motorcycle stopped beside the young couple, and the riders began questioning Eid and his fiancé about the reason of their being in public together, and what sort of relationship they had. Eid replied that they were engaged to get married and that this was none of the three men’s business. This resulted in an argument which escalated into a fight, and one of the men wounded Eid with a knife, cutting his leg from the right thigh down to the lower leg, and cutting an artery. They quickly fled, leaving Eid to bleed.
Passers-by contacted Eid’s family, who rushed Eid to hospital where his condition deteriorated and he finally died there. Eid’s father insisted that he would not accept condolences for his son until the investigations are through and the killers are caught, threatening that he will take matters in his own hands if justice is not served. Tradition goes that when a family refuses to accept condolences for a murdered member, they plan a vendetta.
On Tuesday, a statement by the hardline Islamic group ++al-Amr bil-Maarouf wal-Nahy an al-Munkar++ (Upholding Virtue and battling Vice) was posted on Facebook, stating that the motorcycle members of the group which had injured Eid had only intended to warn and frighten him not to kill him.
The crime aroused heated controversy on the role Islamist hardliners have claimed since the Mursi victory in bringing members of the Egyptian community to tow the line of “Islamic” behaviour. Yet the Upholding Virtue and battling Vice group is not an officially registered one, and it is not clear who can be held responsible for the crime. A police investigation is ongoing.
Watani International
4 July 2012