Mahmoud Abu Zeid, better known as Shawkan, is a photojournalist in Egypt. He was covering a sit-in in Cairo on 14 August 2013, when security forces swept in and turned his life upside down.
It was the bloodiest incident in Egypt’s recent history, claiming some 1,000 lives in just one day. Police and soldiers had been deployed across the country to stamp out dissent where they found it.
Shawkan was taking photos of the mayhem around him, when officers arrested him for his journalism. They tied his hands with plastic cables until they bled. The officers then punched him and whipped him with a belt.
It’s been three years since Shawkan was jailed for taking photos, and if convicted he could face execution.
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