graphic video: protestor shot

Here’s another video I came across while reviewing the Tahrir book. But don’t watch it unless you’re willing to see a protestor shot dead in cold blood by advancing Interior Ministry troops. The unlucky protestor is the one in a dark shirt and headband, and his death occurs just 13 seconds into the video.

The surprising thing is that this happened as early as Thursday, January 27, just before the Friday, January 28 “Day of Rage” when the violence peaked and hundreds were killed. (They’re now saying 850 on that day alone, far above the initial total.)

I can’t tell whether that first scene is even in Cairo. It could be anywhere in Egypt. But I suspect it was somewhere like Suez, where the police were more trigger-happy earlier in the Revolution than was the case in Cairo.

Images like this pour a bit of cold water on the initial impulse I feel to show some mercy to the regime officials at sentencing time. When you remember that they were giving these sorts of orders, you remember how lucky we are that they’re now in prison rather than still in power. (A secretary I spoke with on campus yesterday doesn’t just want the former Interior Minister hanged, she wants him hanged in Tahrir Square. It would have been he who gave shoot-to-kill orders to his troops in this video, though that order could well have come from higher up the chain, and probably did.)