Reflections on today's demonstration protesting against Khaled Sa'id's murder in Cairo

Egyptians demonstrated today in front of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior in Lazoghly, Cairo, protesting the torture and murder of 28-year-old Khaled Sa'id in Alexandria. Khaled was buried (yesterday) Saturday in his home town, Alexandria.

Images of the battered body, the broken jaws, the bleeding face and the torture victim surfaced on the Egyptian blogosphere creating a large 'virtual' movement condemning the murder and reiterating the police forces' brutal and systematic use of torture in Egypt.

A Facebook group entitled "We are all Khaled Said" attracted 73,148 members since its launch on Thursday. Yes: 73,148 people joined the group in only 3 days! Another 130,189 joined a Facebook group entitled "My name was Khaled Mohammed Sa'id".

Khaled Sa'id (28) before and after his arrest.

A Facebook event was designed with the explicit aim of organising today's demonstration - not only expressing dismay at the fate of the 28-year-old entrepreneur from Sidi Gaber, Alexandria. Some 6076 Facebook users confirmed they'll attend while 2524 said they "might be attending." The protest was organised by the "Media Branch" of the "6 April Movement" which organised the 6 April 2008 strike and suffered the wrath of the police forces. However, pictures from Lazoghly today show a significantly smaller number of demonstrators encircled by a police force double their size. Images appeared on Twitter and Facebook groups while the protest was ongoing. Amongst the images that surfaced on the web this afternoon was the following tweeted by AsadX.

Khaled's mother is accepting phone calls expressing condolences and support for the loss of her son. She is said to have told a few callers "Khaled was not a terrorist, nor was he a drug dealer - and yet, they killed him. You might be next, they have no heart." Khaled was a 28-year-old entrepreneur running an import-export company in Sidi Gaber, a Middle Class neighbourhood in Alexandria.