Protests against police torture and continued human rights violations marked the first anniversary of the death of Khaled Said, reports Amira Howeidy Exactly a year after two paid police informants beat 28-year-old Khaled Said to death in broad daylight near his home in Alexandria, the unthinkable happened. The main gates of the Interior Ministry's Lazoughli headquarters in downtown Cairo were covered with stencilled graffiti of Said's face. Tens of other stencils appeared on walls surrounding the ministry, for decades an untouchable symbol of the ousted Hosni Mubarak's police state. The graffiti depicted Said's face, his mouth replaced with verses from the late Amal Donqol's poem La Tosaleh (Do not reconcile), written in protest against the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement in 1979. More than three decades later the poem is finding new popularity in post-revolution Egypt among those who refuse to brush the crimes of the ousted regime beneath the carpet, including the hundreds who gathered before the ministry to protest against continuing human rights violations by the authorities. The stencil included two lines from La Tosaleh : "Will my blood -- through your eyes -- turn to water? Will you forget my blood-stained robe?" Despite the public outcry last year over the murder of Said, whose mutilated body was captured on camera and widely disseminated online, the Interior Ministry refused to acknowledge any responsibility. Initially it claimed that Said died because he attempted to swallow a packet of cannabis, a story supported by the medical report produced by the forensic team appointed by the prosecutor-general. Continued pressure, both domestic and international, finally forced the authorities to backtrack, and the two paid informants were referred to the Alexandria Criminal Court in July 2010. The court's verdict, postponed several times, is now expected on 30 June. Meanwhile, rumours that the two informants escaped from prison during the revolution have neither been confirmed, nor denied, by the authorities. According to Said's mother her son was beaten to death because he was in possession of mobile phone footage showing police officers sharing the spoils of a drug deal. The full story has yet to emerge though images of the young man's crushed and broken face in the morgue were sufficient to mobilise the huge number of people who related to Said's tragedy. A Facebook page, "We are all Khaled Said", was created to expose the security apparatus's violations and to lobby against the regime. Its growing membership -- half a million by January -- helped organise the demonstrations that kick-started the revolution. Nineteen-year-old Hossam Shukrallah, the artist who created the stencil, says that Said's story touched him personally. "It was the reason why I decided to take to the street for the first time last year and join a demonstration protesting against his murder," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The computer science student regularly joined demonstrations after that and spent days in Tahrir Square during the revolution. He designed the stencil with Donqol's poetry "because people think the Interior Ministry has been purified, but this isn't true". Illegal detentions, torture and humiliation were systemic in police stations and State Security offices across the country. Egypt's human rights record was so atrocious it was one of the countries to which the CIA rendered "terrorism" suspects not in the hope of extracting information but because it wanted them to disappear for good. In 2008 human rights groups estimated the number of detainees in Egypt since 1981 to be between 16,000 and 18,000, figures officials denied. Earlier this month ex-deputy director of the government-appointed National Council for Human Rights Kamal Abul-Magd said he had failed during his six years in office to find out the real number. Few could have been surprised when security forces shot and killed approximately 1,000 protesters during the revolution and maimed another 6,000. Although former minister of interior Habib El-Adli and senior officials from the security apparatus are languishing in prison pending investigation, none has been convicted for human rights abuses or murder. Ironically, El-Adli has received a 12-year jail sentence for money laundry and illicit profiteering. Four months after the ouster of the Mubarak regime and the families of those killed and maimed by the security forces are increasingly frustrated by the protracted trial of police officers accused of murdering their loved ones. On 5 June a Cairo criminal court postponed till 3 July the trial of 13 police officers accused of killing six protesters and injuring 18 in Imbaba on 28 and 29 January. Contrary to all expectations the defendants were released rather than detained pending further investigations. Outraged, the victim's families retaliated by staging a sit-in in front of the TV building in Maspero, bringing traffic to a complete halt on Monday, the anniversary of Khaled Said's death. They told Al-Jazeera Egypt TV channel that they were being pressured by police officers to drop the case in return for money. According to Al-Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Violence, three men have died as a result of police torture or violence since May. Most recently, riots broke out on Friday in front of the Azbakeya police station after the family of a microbus driver accused the police of beating him to death. The Interior Ministry denies this, claiming the driver slapped a police officer in the street, provoking an angry crowd that then attacked and killed the driver. But this incident, and others, is viewed by rights groups as a sign that the security apparatus is stuck in its old ways despite the revolution. "This will change only if there is the political will," says Aida Seif El-Dawla, human rights activist and co-founder of Al-Nadim Centre. "And there is no evidence of that." The families of the Imbaba victims held a conference recently, says Seif El-Dawla, during which they vowed to take matters into their own hands if justice is not done. "They said they're ready to kill the officers if they're not tried. This is a very serious development." Since the military assumed power on 11 February following Mubarak's ouster the military police have been filling the gap caused by the withdrawal of security forces on 28 January. Rights groups say approximately 7,000 civilians -- activists, workers, thieves, thugs, even people suspected of infringing building regulations -- have been handed military sentences since then. More recently, the military police faced public outrage after CNN reported that a number of women detained last March were subject to humiliating "virginity tests". Now that the police have become more visible, rights groups have begun to speculate that their absence was deliberate "punishment" for the attacks the security apparatus suffered during and after the revolution. Seif El-Dawla says she's worried. "I fear their return, which appears to be with a vengeance." Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, says the Interior Ministry was pressing Egyptians to choose between their security and their freedom. Security officials, he says, insist they want to improve their "image", as if the problem was one of public relations to start with, and not of systemic torture and abuse. The only way forward, says Bahgat, is for the emergency law in force since 1981 to be lifted and police officers to act within the boundaries of the criminal law, police law and the penal code. "The security apparatus was the backbone of Mubarak's dictatorship. We realise it is the most difficult part of the reform process. But we also know that if we fail to reform the security apparatus then the entire transition to democracy will fail."
