Mariam Moustafa, an engineering student based in Nottingham, UK, was brutally beaten by 10 British women of African descent
CAIRO – 17 March 2018: Egypt’s Attorney General Nabil Sadek on Saturday has ordered an official copy of the death investigations of 18-year-old Egyptian student Mariam Moustafa.
In late February, Moustafa, an engineering student based in Nottingham, UK, was brutally beaten by 10 British women of African descent. The incident stirred condemnation of both the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the British Embassy in Cairo.
UK Police said there was no information to suggest the attack was motivated by racial hate, but authorities will "continue to keep an open mind."
A 17-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of "assault occasioning grievous bodily harm" and has been released on bail, CNN reported.
The death of Moustafa has resulted outrage and infuriation in Egypt.
Moustafa’s mother posted a video on social media saying that her daughter is in critical condition due to being brutally beaten by the ten women. She claimed that the assault was race-motivated, as her daughter doesn’t actually know those girls at all and never talked with them before.
“Four months ago, two of the same ten women abused my daughter in the street with no specific reason. We went to the police station and issued an official complaint; however, nothing happened,” the women said in her video.
She added that when the ten women saw her in the street walking alone, they attacked her once again and dragged her about twenty meters in the street.
“She managed to get up and run towards one of the buses, but they went after her and started to beat her again. Just one man tried to defend her, but no one else tried to interfere,” the mother said.
According to the Mirror website, Mariam was just offered a place at university in London to study engineering, and the incident took place as she was shopping alone in the city.
She agreed to meet with her sister and mother later that day, but due to the escalating situation, she didn’t. The family was informed later that their daughter had been hospitalized.
The following short footage of the attack emerged recently, showing Moustafa being bullied by the attackers.
Immediately the foreign ministry announced it is following the case through the Egyptian Embassy in London and will make sure the attackers were brought to justice.
Moreover, the ministry addressed concerns regarding the medical health that Moustafa received following the attack.
In a statement issued on March 2, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said they are following all of the case’s updates.
Abu Zeid said Egyptian authorities demanded the British authorities to take more serious steps in investigating the abusers, especially that they were captured by the CCTV cameras from the streets and bus where the incident took place.
The statement also accused the hospital were Moustafa was taken with “negligence”, as they gave her first aid treatment and checked her out while she needed more care; accordingly, she fell into coma shortly later.
The ministry also hired Moustafa’s family a lawyer to follow the case’s legal updates, according to the statement.
On March 3, Sadek ordered a probe to be launched into the assault. He ordered the International Cooperation Administration of the Public Prosecution to send a letter to the British authorities, asking to be updated on U.K. inquires about the attack and Moustafa’s medical report.
Moreover, Alaa Abed, head of the Egyptian Parliament's Human Rights Committee, said in a statement on March 15, that the Parliament will dispatch a delegation to the UK to follow up investigations of Moustafa’ s case.
“The Egyptian government will closely follow the updates of the ongoing investigation, in order to capture the perpetrators of the horrific crime,” added Abed in the statement released on Thursday.
The victim’s lawyer, said that by Moustafa’s death, the case defined itself as a murder case. He also pointed out that the hospital’s report did not name Moustafa as a victim of an assault.
He revealed that she was released from the hospital about 25 minutes after the assault despite that she was still suffering an internal bleeding.
According to him, the 18-year-old girl is in coma due to two brain strokes that forced the brain to stop functioning.
“The British police officers are not taking the investigation seriously for a reason we don’t get. The cameras are suppose to be working and all of the ten women have been captured; however, none of them were arrested until now,” he said.
On March 4, the British Embassy in Cairo described what happened to Mariam as "a despicable and unacceptable attack.”
Spokesperson for the British Embassy Sara Aggour said all forms of hate crimes are totally unacceptable while affirming that the embassy is following up on the incident and attending to Mustafa’s family; in addition to the open investigation on this attack to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
“We are working with the Egyptian Embassy in London to ensure that Mariam and her family receive the support they need,” she added.
Investigations into the horrific assault continue to ensure justice is served. We are in contact with @NottsPolice & the Egyptian Embassy to make sure her family has the support they need.
— UK in Egypt (@UKinEgypt) March 14, 2018
Until Thursday, March 15 in the morning, only three British newspapers including the local paper of Nottingham highlighted the incident despite it took place on February 20.
In statements to the British-owned newspaper, Moustafa’s 15-year-old sister Mallak said that they are all angry because of what happened. “She is such a kind, ambitious person and one who was running after her dreams of being an engineer. We don't understand who would do this to her; she is very quiet and never gets involved in any problems. She was originally released from hospital on the same day, and once we got her home, she started to deteriorate and so she was rushed back to hospital,” she stated.
"We were told that there was bleeding in her brain and she had suffered a stroke; one side of her body is now not responding. She is now in a coma and has been in that way for a week since the night of the attack. We never got to find out what happened from her, because she didn't get a chance to tell us before she fell unwell,” the sister added.
"We are hoping that her brain is recovering while she is in a coma, and until that happens we will continue to be by her side every day at the hospital. We are all very shocked and upset and don't know what to do. We just want those who did this to Mariam to be found, as what has happened is wrong," Mallak concluded.
The hashtag “Mariam’s right will not be wasted” was initiated on Twitter in solidarity with the victim’s family, demanding justice to be served.
Egyptian Twitter users rallied around Moustafa’s tragedy by circulating the hashtag and expressing their deepest condolences to the victim’s family. The legal counselor of the Egyptian embassy in London announced her death earlier on Wednesday.
In late February, Moustafa, an 18-year-old engineering student based in Nottingham, U.K., was brutally beaten by 10 British women of African descent. The incident stirred condemnation of both the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the British embassy in Cairo.
Investigations into the horrific assault continue to ensure justice is served. We are in contact with @NottsPolice & the Egyptian Embassy to make sure her family has the support they need.
— UK in Egypt (@UKinEgypt) March 14, 2018
“The perpetrators are known to the British authorities, and soon they will be charged of killing Mariam,” Egyptian Ambassador to the U.K. Nasser Kamel told Ala Mas’olity TV show on Sada el-Balad channel on Wednesday.
Imagine the outrage if this had been a European student attacked in Egypt, and a European family who’s hearts were breaking, and Egyptian doctors who were the ones mishandling her treatment. #حق_مريم_لن_يضيع
— صفيه (@saphiaadel) March 14, 2018
The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) demanded joint investigations between England and Egypt into Moustafa’s death.
In a press release, the organization condemned the “heinous” crime, which came following a series of attacks that were recently carried out by right-wing extremists, one of which was the attack that resulted in the loss of lives of Muslim worshipers in London, the statement said in reference to the vehicle attack that was aimed at Muslims attending evening prayers in Ramadan last July.
The statement also added that British authorities have not taken sufficient measures to address the hateful treatment dealt to Mostafa and mentioned that the racist attack against the 17-year-old teenager was a long one and authorities failed to interfere.
“The cultural and political measures taken were not enough to prevent segments of British society, including children, from slipping down this degeneration,” the statement added.
The organization welcomes the decision of the Egyptian attorney general to open an investigation into the crime and the decision of Parliament’s chairman of the Human Rights Committee to dispatch a parliamentary delegation to Britain to follow up on the relevant investigations, the statement added.
Egypt’s Minister of Immigration Nabila Makram demanded that the attackers’ penalties be escalated for their brutality, affirming that she mandated her aide for Egyptian communities’ affairs to follow up the case.
“Gen. Samir Taha visited Mariam at the hospital right before her death, and he will follow up on the case with the Egyptian embassy in London,” Makram said on Wednesday, expressing her condolences to the family.
Mostafa’s mother posted a video on social media saying that her daughter was in critical condition due to being brutally beaten by the 10 women. She claimed that the assault was race-motivated, as her daughter didn’t actually know those girls at all and never talked with them before.
“Four months ago, two of the same 10 women abused my daughter in the street with no specific reason. We went to the police station and issued an official complaint; however, nothing happened,” the grieving mother said in the video.
She added that when the 10 women saw her daughter in the street walking alone, they attacked her once again and dragged her some 20 meters in the street. “She managed to get up and run towards one of the buses, but they went after her and started to beat her again. Only one man tried to defend her, but no one else tried to interfere,” the mother said.
Dalia Youssef, member of the Egyptian Parliament Foreign Relations Committee and head Egyptian-British Parliamentary Friendship Association, announced on March 17, that she is following through the case.
Youssef also affirmed that members of the association are closely following up the case until justice is being served.
On another note, MP Tarek al-Khouly, a member of parliament’s International Relations Committee, issued an urgent statement regarding Mariam’s death to ministries of interior and justice.
Khouly demanded that the British authorities provide a copy of all the investigations, as well as all the procedures that were taken.
For his part, parliamentarian Alaa Abed, head of the Human Rights Committee in parliament, announced that the committee will be sending an envoy to follow-up developments on the death investigations.
The committee will travel in a couple of days and will be in contact with the British investigation authorities, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, the Egyptian ambassador in Britain Nasser Kamel, and the British House of Commons.
Egyptian MP Sherif el Wardany has challenged statements from the Nottinghamshire Police Force, highlighting that they show a clear “denial of responsibility.”
The police failed to interfere and rescue Mariam Moustafa, who had been assaulted in the street, and overlooked a previous incident in which she was attacked by two of the same assailants, Wardany told Egypt today on Tuesday. He questioned why the assailants were not arrested shortly after the incident.
Wardany, who also serves as the secretary of the Human Rights Parliamentary Committee, said that the committee is set to request that Speaker of the Parliament Ali Abdel Aal summons British Ambassador John Casson over the case.
He also said that the parliamentary delegation, which will be dispatched on Thursday to follow the investigations into the death of Mariam, also seeks answers over possible medical negligence in her case. He added that the parliamentary committee will hold meetings with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriate Affairs, Nabila Makram, to discuss developments and future stances that should be taken concerning the case.
British newspapers, such as the Guardian, have reported that police investigations into the death of Moustafa revealed that the attack was not racially motivated.
Moustafa was born in Italy, and according to Italian local media Italy's prosecution has addressed its counterpart in the U.K. to join the investigation's proceedings.
The Italian Foreign Ministry described the crime as “brutal,” adding that the Italian Ambassador to the United Kingdom “is personally following the case in cooperation with the Egyptian counterpart.”
"In relation to the tragic case of compatriot Mariam Moustafa, brutally killed in Nottingham, we express our deep condolences and sympathy to her family, and additionally wish that those responsible for this atrocious crime are soon brought to justice," the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
On Monday, British Ambassador to Egypt John Casson said during an interview with Egyptian satellite channel ON Live that the horrible assault on the Egyptian student is a crime against British values.
Addressing Moustafa’s family, Casson mourned the tragic loss of their daughter, calling the victim a promising student. Casson assured the family that the horrible crime will not pass unpunished and that justice will be served, adding that the British authorities are conducting a wide-scale investigation on the matter.
Also, the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) demanded joint investigations between the U.K. and Egypt into Moustafa’s death.
In a press release, the organization condemned the “heinous” crime, which came following a series of attacks that were recently carried out by right-wing extremists. One such attack, the Finsbury Park mosque attack, resulted in the death of a Muslim worshipper who was attending evening prayers during Ramadan, June 2017.
Previously, Moustafa’s mother posted a video on social media saying that her daughter is in critical condition as a result of the attack. She claimed that the assault was race-motivated, as her daughter didn't know the 10 girls who attacked her, and had never spoken with them before.
“Four months ago, two of the same 10 women abused my daughter in the street for no specific reason. We went to the police station and issued an official complaint; however, nothing happened,” Moustafa's mother said in the video.
She added that when the 10 women saw Moustafa in the street walking alone, they attacked her once again and dragged her about 20 meters.
“She managed to get up and run towards one of the buses, but they went after her and started to beat her again. Just one man tried to defend her, but no one else tried to interfere,” the mother said.
In late February, the 18-year-old engineering student was tragically attacked and put into a coma by 10 British women of African descent. The incident stirred condemnation from both the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and the British Embassy in Cairo.
The Egyptian Parliament's Human Rights Committee announced it will prepare a report, including all the violations committed against Egyptian expatriates to submit it to the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), according to Deputy Chairman of Human Rights Committee Margaret Azer.
Azer said that the committee will hold a discussion with the European Parliament and other international forums about Mariam Moustafa, who had been assaulted in the street in Nottingham, UK, referring that the medical negligence, of which Moustafa was a victim, further points out that the assault was racially motivated.
In the same context, Parliament members expressed their anger towards the statements of Nottinghamshire Police Force, which declared that “the assault was not racially motivated.”
Azer stressed that the Parliament will not abandon Moustafa’s case and will continue to follow up the case until justice is served.
President of the Egyptian Association for the Assistance of Juveniles and Human Rights Mahmoud al-Badawi explained that Egyptian authorities will follow up the investigations as the UK is known for its misleading investigations, like what happened with the cases of Soad Hosny and Ashraf Marwan.
An Egyptian parliamentary delegation, including Alaa Abed, head of the human rights committee, and Egyptian Ambassador to the U.K. Nasser Kamel met on March 24 with the family of Moustafa.
The meeting, which was held at the Egyptian embassy in London, followed up the investigations conducted by the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard)
in Moustafa's case and discussed the required preparations to transfer the victim's body to Cairo as soon as possible.
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