Ahmed Mansour
Ahmed Mansour was studying for his last year at the Higher Institute of Media and Communication Arts University as of October 6th. His dream was to become a journalist.
He participated in the events of the revolution and was a member of April 6 Movement. He documented his in an article titled, “A Day in the Life of Revolutionary: Memoirs of Pain and Joy”, where he described his actions and how he was arrested.
In order to participate in the “Friday of Anger” he had to lie to his father and told him that he was going spend two days with a friend in Monufia—a governorate of Egypt, located in the northern part of the country in the Nile Delta, 80 Km from Cairo—but left the his home and went to his other friend’s house near the pyramid area to spend the night so he could participate at the “Friday of Anger” the next morning. Ahmed thought he might never come back again and could be killed by the police.
On December 16th, 2011, Ahmed was not among the protesters in front of the Ministers’ Cabinet, 3 minutes away from Tahrir Square, as he was at training, but when he learned that the security forces had attacked protesters and stripped girls of their clothing on the street so he rushed to the Tahrir Square.
At approximately 4:30 pm, Ahmed was injured by a bullet to the right side of his head with a shot delivered by security forces. He was taken to Al Qasr Al Ayni Hospital, but doctors couldn’t save him. He was pronounced dead at 9:00 PM on the same day, Friday, December 16, 2011.
His family knew about his injury when his cousin tried to call him and a stranger answered the phone.
His brother Karim remembers of him, “Ahmed wanted to improve himself. Shortly before his death he started working at a real estate company and was very happy when he received his first salary. He also wanted to join an English course.”
After Ahmed’s death, his family found one sentence he wrote repeatedly in his memoir, “All I think about becomes a reality.” He also wrote about how sad he was when Saints Church in Alexandria was bombed on the 1st of January, 2011. He wrote, “I was not as sad as I am this time. I’m crying for us and I can not study. I feel so bad. Pictures of people who died are everything and are haunting my memories. I can not stop comparing the pictures of the victims’ remains to their true pictures of when they were alive.”