As the body of Mohamed Bayoumi, 23, was being laid to rest in his hometown Delta city of Mansoura Tuesday morning, a police raid was tearing down parts of several illegal cafés in Heliopolis, in east Cairo, where Bayoumi was killed on Sunday evening. Bayoumi, a fresh graduate of the British University in Egypt, had taken his fiancé to watch the final match between Egypt and Cameroon in the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon on Sunday 5 February, an event broadcast only on cable TV which most of Egypt's cafés provided. The couple went to Kief in Heliopolis' Al-Nozha Street where dozens of unlicensed cafés mushroomed in recent years. When Bayoumi wanted to leave after the match, he was stopped by the café's staff who closed the door and refused to let customers out before they settled their bills. According to eyewitnesses, a dispute erupted between Bayoumi and the café's management because he refused to wait after paying his bill and insisted on leaving. This ended in an altercation with the staff and led to his death at the hands of a waiter. The news broke out on social media in the early hours of Monday when several eyewitnesses wrote about it on Facebook. The posts went viral and sent shockwaves across Heliopolis, one of the most disciplined areas in Cairo where the rule of law is most evident. Security is evident and until recent years, construction violations were not tolerated. This was largely due to the fact that former president Hosni Mubarak lived there throughout his three decades in office. Heliopolis residents say that with Mubarak's ouster in 2011, the suburb lost the symbolic importance it enjoyed under his rule, its urban landscape no longer capable of withstanding the post-revolution havoc that swept the capital: mushrooming of unlicensed cafés, speedy demolition of villas and small buildings replaced by giant towers and the removal of its century-old tram. The death of an upper middle class university graduate in an unlicensed café was viewed not just as a crime but a manifestation of the lawlessness that residents say has affected their lives. The incident was the focus of Monday evening's TV talk shows where hosts described what happened as “thuggery”. Prosecutors on Monday ordered a waiter at Keif restaurant detained for four days pending an investigation. The restaurant owner and two other employees were arrested and are in police custody. In a move to contain public anger, authorities tore down the façade of several cafés in Heliopolis near and around Kief with bulldozers. Furniture was confiscated as employees and owners watched in shock. Some residents watching the raid said they were happy with the steps taken which they added were long overdue but were sceptical of its sustainability. “The damage is easily repairable once the media and public opinion forget about the boy's death,” said one eyewitness resident. “These cafés will soon be operating again right under the noses of officials.” In a post on his Facebook page, Karim Salem, MP for Heliopolis, called for unified action against “thuggery” and unlicensed coffee shops. Salem said it was necessary to introduce tougher penalties in legislation to deter and stop those violating the law, but that public oversight was needed to make this work. “We moved later than we should have, after a young man lost his life,” Salem admitted. Salem's post was flooded with comments from residents divided between expressing gratitude and frustration at the invasion of cafés in residential areas and the gridlock, violence and noise they cause. “This has been a residential area since the 1970s. Now we can't sleep or park our cars because of at least seven cafés and the thugs they employ,” one Facebook user, Adel Loza, said. “Why was this permitted in the first place? And what do we do now, move or immigrate?”
