More than a week after Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in Alexandria, there are signs that the Egyptian authorities are beginning to take the case more seriously.
The prosecutor general has ordered a fresh autopsy, to be carried out by the country's most senior coroners, the BBC and 
AFP report.

The attack on 28-year-old Khaled in an internet cafe has prompted numerous demonstrations in Egypt (the Arabawy blog has video ofone such protest, with calls for the beheading of General Habib el-Adly, the 72-year-old interior minister), and by early today the "Khaled killed" Facebook page had been "liked" by 171,903 people.

Amnesty International earlier called for "an immediate, full and independent" investigation and the US State Department expressed concern. "We urge the Egyptian authorities to hold accountable whoever is responsible," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in remarks quoted as by AFP.

All this pressure has no doubt helped to focus minds inside the Mubarak regime. 

Meanwhile, Egyptian journalist Osama Diab has proposedrenaming Cairo's biggest square "Khaled Said Square". He writes: 

The government changes the name of streets all the time ... For example, Montazah Street in Heliopolis, where my good friend Karim lives, was renamed after some unknown police general. 

We can also do this. Let's name Tahrir square after Khaled Said. Let's start it unofficialy. Many places in Cairo go by their unofficial name, and maybe later we can lobby for changing it officially. "Tahrir" means "liberation", and I'm sure most of us are not keen on keeping its name until we're actually liberated.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 16 June 2010.