Today - June, 6, 2013 - marks the three year anniversary of the day Khaled Said (28) was beaten to death by police officers on the streets of Alexandria.
Soon after Said's death a horrific picture of his mutilated face circulated on the internet. Then-Google employee and now-political activist Wael Ghonim created a Facebook page for Said called 'Kullina Khaled Said', Egyptian-Arabic for 'We are all Khaled Said'. The page generated a lot of attention for Said's case and police brutality in Egypt in general. A few months later, Ghonim would be one of the first Egyptians to call for mass protests against the Mubarak regime, using the Khaled Said tribute page to reach an audience.
Because of this, the death of Khaled Said is often seen as the final straw in mobilising the Egyptian people into the uprising of January 2011. I'm not sure if that's true, but one thing that is certain is that an end to police brutality in general was one of the main demands of the revolution.
Unfortunately, there were many more Khaled Saids before him and there have been many since January 2011. Police brutality in Egypt has all but disappeared.
