Those of you who live in Egypt will know that over the past week there has been much brouhaha over a series of stabbings in the well-heeled neighborhood of Maadi, land of expats, embassy housing and fine pork products. The press has been having a field day with this, as it has over past “serial killer” affairs, and Rose al-Youssef has taken to accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind the mysterious stabbings — because lately, for Rose al-Youssef, anything bad happening in Egypt is the fault of the MB.
Amidst all this hand-wringing, a courageous reader of the Egyptian Gazette has suggested a solution to snare the evildoer. It was published in Thursday’s paper (right next to a column where Tarek Heggy surpasses himself in pomposity by listing every Islamic thinker he has heard about), and proves yet again that the Gazette is essential reading for crime-fighters.
Sandmonkey http://www.sandmonkey.org/2007/01/15/dear-people-of-maadi/“ rel=”nofollow”>said it this was bullshit –
so whats going on? is sandmonkey an idiot, or is everyone else?
I haven’t followed the case, what is true is that there are reports of a killer or agressor in Maadi but these could be just lies. I find it odd, however, that the Ministry of Interior would try to invent a serial killer as Sandmonkey suggests.
They have mortadella in maadi?
Well, the U.S. embassy sent around a just-in-case warning about Maadi and there have been confirmations of stabbing attacks (though not actual deaths), so I don’t think it’s purely a figment of everyone’s imagination.
And they happened on the slightly more downmarket outskirts of Maadi, so piggy-expat-land is safe, alhamdulleh.
It’s good to see that Mamdouh Dakhakhani is still writing his letters to the editor (he’s extremely prolific), and I think his idea sounds like enormous amounts of fun.
The Maadi Ripper story is very similar to the one about the Heliopolis Stabber that came out a few years back, we finally ran a story about it in the Cairo Times, focusing more about the hysteria about it, than the case. One day people just stopped talking about it and that was it.
What all these seem to have in common is that lone women in western dress are the target — the implication being that these people shouldn’t be wearing such clothes or out on the streets to begin with.
To my mind (based on nothing really), an isolated case gets fanned by the flames of the rumor mill tinged by the tut-tutting of an increasingly conservative society. Sort of like the people who get killed in horror movies are always the teenage couple who have just had illicit sex.
Be virtuous, stay at home, then you won’t have to worry about the stabber. And so society enforces its mores.
Regardless of whether or not there is a serial killer on the loose in Maadi, any community policing involving women “trained to perfection in the martial arts” and capable of landing “well aimed king fu blows” gets my vote. I suggest Cairo — and every other major metropolitan area in the world — get started on this immediately.
Paul, that’s exactly what I thought when the story came out – it’s the “girls in tight jeans” that are supposed to bring the stabber out, hmmm.
There’s an academic article waiting to be written on how the silawa myth translates in urban settings…
Paul & SP, I think you’re right. Remember this in February 2002, it was being sent by email:
>”Serial Killer On The Loose In CAIRO”
>
>Area Of Activity:
>Heliopolis, Ard El Golf and Nasr City, apparently fashionable residential areas in eastern Cairo but
he might not be restricted to just those areas !
>
>Specific locations where he picked his previous victims:
>Farah Cafe, Cartigiano and Grand Cafe and maybe more other places.
>
>Victims:
>Young girls, teens, school girls, young wives, university students of various ages and relatively young
ladies, apparently good looking or flashy girls or ladies who frequent discotheques and cafes and
such places but not necessarily that only !
>
>Motive:
>No apparant motive !, girls were found headless, he slaughters them first then severes the head from
the body with probably a saw and som! etimes cuts the body into pieces, no signs of assault, rape or
robbery, girls were found virginity intact with full jewellery, so he has no sexual or stealing motives !
>
>Suspect:
>Taxi Cab Driver or Good looking guy with a car who picks girls, and maybe more than one person
involved !
>3 of the victims were last seen by thier friends or boyfriends taking a taxi cab home, but never
returned home since then !
>Suspect could be of Fanatic Religeous background, mentally unstable or Sexually impotent.
>
>Location of dead bodies:
>2 girls near Farah Cafe Ard El Golf , female human body parts in a bag in front of Cartigiano , 1 in
Merryland Area and 1 in Ard El Golf Area, 1 Ain Shams University + 3 girls disappeared with no
trace, 2 took a taxi in front of Grand Cafe and 1 front of Merryland , some bodies were found
headless! , and some heads does not fit the found bodies !
>
>Number Of Victims:
>Security sources say 8 , other sources estimate it to a number of 28 !
>
>This information will not go public, The Ministery of Internal Affairs keeps it confidential in order not
to cause panic, and to cover thier failure (as usual) to uncover the ripper !!!
>
>So tell all the girls you know to watch out, don’t go out alone night or day, don’t take a taxi alone or
even in duets, avoid dark alleys and lonesome streets, don’t go joy riding with strangers, preferably
use public transportation or relatives’ cars.
Also this CT story from around the time:
Hed: Dangerous whispers
Sub: Can you go to jail for crying wolf?
A month ago Cairo was awash in rumors about a supposed serial killer operating in Nasr City who was stalking and dismembering young girls taking taxis. The rumors, which spread rapidly by word of mouth and by e-mail, could now be considered illegal by the state. A month ago a 19-year-old avionics student was arrested and referred to a State Security court for setting up a website disseminating these rumors.
Indi Ibrahim Shukri, a second year student of civil avionics at the National Institute for Flight Training in Imbaba, was arrested by State Security officers “thirty days ago” according to an official in that department, speaking on 30 March. The charge in his court file alleges that on 12 February he set up an Internet site with “premeditated intent” to “disseminate a false rumor about the existence of a murderer at large who selects his victims from girls who frequent public places in the area of East Cairo.” As the ++Cairo Times went to press Shukri remained incarcerated in Tura prison, where he’d been transferred five days after the arrest. He will remain there until the hearing of his case at a State Security Misdemeanors court in Heliopolis on 3 April.
The charge that has nailed the unfortunate Shukri is that his website “disrupted public security and spread panic through the people.” The number of word of mouth transmissions and e-mails on the subject of the serial killer would suggest this charge could be applied to more than just one individual, but it has been the charge that he set up an internet site devoted to the subject that has perhaps singled him out. A fellow student at the Flight Training Institute recalls that “Indi left his name and telephone number on the website and that’s how they caught him, they didn’t have to track him through e-mails.”
Despite the fellow student’s account there is some doubt over the veracity of the prosecution’s claims that an actual website was designed. When the ++Cairo Times took a look at the case file in the Heliopolis court, there was plenty of material printed out from the internet, but these were either photo-montages from the weekly crime tabloid ++Akhbar Al Hawadith’s website or e-mails. A state security officer at the scene explained that there was, in fact, no website, and that Shukri had just been just passing on e-mails. This would make his arrest problematic to justify, given that the plethora of media coverage and e-mails at the time that essentially served the same purpose. It is interesting to note, for example, that ++Akhbar Al Hawadith’s crude depiction of women with severed heads (from computer manipulated images) is not culpable of the charge of “spreading panic through the people” while Shukri’s actions are.
Nevertheless, both ++Al Akhbar and ++Al Ahram carried small pieces on the case in their 25 March editions implying Shukri’s responsibility for the affair, and emphasizing his irresponsibility. “It came as a surprise when the student confessed that he didn’t know whether or not the information [on his website] was correct and that he had ‘heard’ it only,” wrote Al ++Ahram. “He tried to defend himself by saying that he intended to warn people!” it added incredulously.
Whether or not Shukri was responsible for internet postings, his centrality to the rumor mill is surely not so easy to prove, nor likely. “He was only spreading rumors he heard,” says his fellow avionics student. But that’s been enough to get this particular 19-year-old locked up pending a state security trial. So what’s the point of this strong-arm tactic? The security chief at Heliopolis probably puts it best: “The murderer? That’s all over now, can’t you see; finished. Why are you writing about that?”
**Robin Moger**
Yeah, that’s the one, I forgot it was a beheading thing. I think we used an Egyptian movie poster from an old slasher film to illustrate Robin’s piece.
Great email, I love the reference to “flashy girls and ladies who frequent discotheques” and “stealing motives”.
I wonder what happened to Shukri?
I noticeded that you have gigantic personal hatred towards Dr. Heggy whom I had the pleasure of attending one of his superb lectures at Harvard university couple of years ago. Probably something personal went wrong between yourself (as a woman) and this peerless intellectual (a man who, undeniably, is too too much for the Arabic speaking societies) to the extent that turns you that wild (and I hate to say “that bitchy”). Cool down and realize that only because of these feelings, the ARABIC SPEAKING PEOPLE are lagging behind the rest of humanity. You are so vicious … Nancy Cohen.
I am sure a “peerless intellectual” such as Tarek Heggy won’t have his feelings hurt by an insignificant insect such as myself. And I am not a woman, by the way.
I have received an email from a Heggy fan who said:
Thanks for the psychiatric advice. Perhaps I do suffer from Heggy envy.
It’s not so much that I fundamentally disagree with Tarek Heggy’s writings as that I think he writes in an opaque and convulated way for a columnist.
I am not really inclined to have an argument about an article published in the Egyptian Gazette of all places. But anyone interested in finding out more about Heggy’s work can go to http://www.heggy.org and make up their own mind. Go to “Click here for guidance” on the main page to go to the articles archive.
Some readres drew my intention to what Mr. or Mrs. or Miss el Amrani wrote about me (not about my writings). I therefore had a chance to read comments by a number of people who asumed that what el Amrani wrote about me must have angered me. To add my own comment on all what was posted (with or against), I would hope that those who followed this illusive battle would blieve me when I say : I was neither upset (by el Amrani’s views) nor thrilled (by those who thought differently of me). To all I say : please remember that we have much serious aspects of our life in Egypt to worry about .. we have the forces of darkeness .. we have the agony of being managed by the unique Egyptian alloy of CORRUPTION + IGNORANCE. So, please focus on much more serious matters than whether el Amrani likes me or otherwise !!! Tarek Heggy (Dubai : 31st January).
Mr. Heggy, a very classy comment – thank you for taking the time to reply, it’ s appreciated.