A quick glance through the crime pages of daily newspapers during the past few years and you might be forgiven for thinking that murder has become a staple of Egyptian daily life, writes Mohamed El-Sayed On 29 July, 23-year-old taxi driver Mohamed Saqr, from Mahala, was stabbed to death by a 20-year-old shop owner in a mosque. The reason? Because he parked his taxi in front of the latter's store. The following day, an administrative employee at Abul-Rish Hospital in Cairo stabbed to death his colleague and dumped the body in a bathroom. He cited "mocking me" as the reason for the murder. On 28 July, a man from the Cairo district of Al-Basateen stabbed his 34-year-old fiancée to death, then stole her gold jewellery and mobile phone. Three weeks ago, a 54-year-old driver working in a construction company in 6 October governorate opened fire on his colleagues, killing six and injuring the same number. "The culture of violence in Egypt has grown dramatically in recent years," says sociologist Madiha El-Safti of the American University in Cairo. "This is basically due to bad economic conditions and the surge in poverty rates." But murder is far from being the preserve of the poor and dispossessed. Ihab Salah, a news anchor who works for Egyptian state television, shot his wife, 35-year-old Magda Wahid, dead at their Giza home two weeks ago following a heated argument in which she accused him of having an affair with another woman. And in another high-profile case two years ago, a man murdered his son, daughter and wife after losing money on the stock exchange. "It's almost become a phenomenon," says El-Safti. "When the number of murder cases is on the rise, then we can say it's a phenomenon." While El-Safti believes the "phenomenon" will persist, other sociologists are more optimistic. Samir Naim points out that though the number of murder cases reported in the media is on the rise, murder rates remain low at 0.59 per 100,000. "This percentage is not alarming in itself. What is alarming is the violence and brutality used while killing and the change in crime patterns in Egypt," he said during a recent conference." Naim attributes such changes to "the widening gap between the rich and the poor, deterioration in education, and the disappearance of proper rearing." While Naim stressed that there are no accurate statistics about crimes committed in Egypt, a recent study conducted by the National Centre for Sociological and Criminological Research found that 92 per cent of murders committed in Egypt involved honour killing. Ironically, police investigations showed that 60 per cent of these murder cases were prompted by suspicions that proved to be unfounded. Egyptian judges last year issued 269 death sentences against people, the majority convicted of murder. Yet despite the fact that Egypt was ranked among the top three countries issuing death sentences, capital punishment seems to be failing to turn the tide.
