CAIRO — Her friends wanted to lay a wreath in Tahrir Square as a memorial, but Shaimaa el-Sabbagh urged them to reconsider. She feared that the police might attack, mistaking them for supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, said her cousin, Sami Mohamed Ibrahim.
But how, her friends asked, could the police attack a few dozen civilians who were armed only with flowers? So she kissed her 5-year-old son, Bilal, goodbye, left him in the care of a friend near her home in Alexandria and, a day before the anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring revolt here, boarded a train for Cairo.
By midafternoon, Ms. Sabbagh, 31, lay dead on a crowded street downtown, a potent symbol of the lethal force the Egyptian authorities have deployed to silence the cacophony of protest and dissent unleashed here four years ago. Human rights advocates say the cold brutality of her killing shows how far the military-backed government is willing to go to enforce a return to the old authoritarian order, and the muted response at home and abroad is evidence of its initial success.
Videos captured the final moments of the Egyptian activist Shaimaa al-Sabbagh’s life before and after she was shot by the police during a peaceful protest in Cairo on Jan. 24.
Photographers and videographers captured Ms. Sabbagh’s death moment by moment. As soon as the procession begins and without any warning, masked riot police officers blast the crowd with tear gas and birdshot from across a narrow street. A shotgun cracks. A kneeling friend holds Ms. Sabbagh by the waist to keep her upright, blood streaking down her cheeks and his head against her abdomen. Then another friend carries her limp frame cradled in his arms through the tear gas in a vain attempt to save her.
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“Peaceful Shaimaa only dreamed of a free country,” wrote Ahmed el-Sayed al-Naggar, the chairman of the state-run news organization, but “she was killed in cold blood by the same person who killed the martyrs she was going to honor.”
In thetelevision appearance Monday, President Sisi urged the interior minister to track down the killer, offering reassurances that even if a police officer shot Ms. Sabbagh, the ministry itself would not bear the blame. “We will not tear down that institution, never,” Mr. Sisi vowed.
“I don’t know, in all sincerity and truth, who is behind the killing of Shaimaa el-Sabbagh,” Mr. Sisi insisted, placing a hand on his heart.
In Alexandria, a friend and her cousin said, no one has yet told Ms. Sabbagh’s son, Bilal, that his mother is not coming home.
Merna Thomas contributed reporting from Cairo.
