Demonstrators protesting at the brutal killing of a 28-year-old Egyptian while in the hands of the police were themselvesassaulted by security forces in Alexandria yesterday. 

Earlier, some 600 people attended funeral prayers for Khaled Said whose death on June 6 is being seen as the latest example of abuses made possible by Egypt's semi-permanent "emergency" law.

Amnesty International has called for "an immediate, full and independent" investigation: 

Shocking pictures of Khaled Mohammed Said's body, whose face is almost unrecognisable from the beating he received, at the hands of the Egyptian police and in public according to reports, [have] been posted on the internet.

The horrific photographs are shocking evidence of the abuses taking place in Egypt which are in stark contrast to the image of the country depicted today by Egyptian officials to members of the UN Human Rights Council and their reluctant recognition of some minor wrongdoings …

Although, the exact circumstances surrounding the killing are still being pieced together, what is known is that Khaled Mohammed Said was severely beaten by two plain-clothes police officers in an internet cafe. He was reportedly dragged out of the café and the beating continued until he died.

For more details see Associated Press and al-Masry al-Youm. Egyptian Chronicles discusses the case further (here and 
here), and there is also a Facebook page (in Arabic) about Khaled Said's death.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 14 June 2010.