CAIRO (Reuters) – After eight days of protests that killed nearly 60 people, a video of one demonstrator stripped naked, dragged across the ground and beaten with truncheons by helmeted riot police has fired Egyptians to a new level of outrage.
Hamada Saber, 48, lay in a police hospital yesterday, the morning after he was shown on television naked, covered in soot and thrashed by half a dozen policemen who had pulled him to an armoured vehicle near the presidential palace.
President Mohamed Mursi’s office promised an investigation into the incident, which followed the deadliest wave of bloodshed of his seven-month rule. His opponents say it proves he has chosen to order a brutal crackdown like that carried out by Hosni Mubarak against the uprising that toppled him in 2011.
“Mursi has been stripped bare and has lost his legitimacy. Done,” tweeted Ahmed Maher, founder of the April 6 youth movement that helped launch the anti-Mubarak protests.
Another protester was shot dead on Friday and more than 100 were injured, many seriously, in battles between police and demonstrators who attacked the palace with petrol bombs.
That unrest followed eight days of violence that saw dozens of protesters shot dead in the Suez Canal city of Port Said and Mursi respond by declaring a curfew and state of emergency there and in two other cities.
But none of the bloodshed – which the authorities have blamed on the need for police to control violent crowds – has quite resonated like the images of officers abusing a man at their feet – clearly helpless, prone and no possible threat.
