فـقـد عـظـيـم.. وداعا أستاذي وصديقي د. مـحـمـد الـسـيـد سـعـيـد

Farewell to “El-Doctor”


By Fatma Farag and Saif Nasrawi

Port Said-- Deputy head of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies and respected columnist, academic and political activist Mohamed el-Sayed Said was buried yesterday in his hometown Port Said.

“El-Doctor," as his friends and colleagues loved to call him, died on Saturday at the age of 59 after a grueling battle with cancer for which he was being treated in Paris but returned to Cairo last week when his condition deteriorated.

Over 150 activists, journalists, intellectuals, family and friends converged on the Al-Abbassi Mosque in downtown Port Said and insisted that they walk behind the funeral motorcade in the streets of the city to the cemetery. The authorities were reluctant at first, but eventually conceded under pressure.

The congregation included Chairman of Al-Ahram’s board Abdel Moniem Said, Gamal Abdel Gawad, Taha Abdel Alim, Chief Editor of Al-Ahram Osama Saraya, columnist Amr Shobaky, the governor of Port Said Mostapha Abdel Latif, and many others.

Said was the co-founder and first chief editor of the left-wing el-Badeel newspaper, one of the founders of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, and a founding member of the Kifaya Movement for Change.

He is also remembered as one of a group of left-wing and human rights activists arrested and tortured in 1989 for their position of solidarity with striking steel workers.

He is survived by his 15 year old son Marawan, and his wife journalist Nour el-Hoda Zaki.