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The Indifference of the Ataba Crowd · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Cairo, nineteen ninety two. It's the end of Ramadan, the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: holy month is drawing to a close, and you can
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: almost feel this city holding its breath for Eed Outfit, that's.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: The feast that ends the fasting. But right now, a
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: week before the holiday, there's just this one feeling everywhere you.
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  Speaker 1: Go, frantic, urgent pressure, and all of.
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  Speaker 2: That pressure seems to just crystallize in one specific place,
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  Speaker 2: the Ataba commercial district.
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  Speaker 1: If you've ever been to Ataba, you know it's already
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  Speaker 1: well famous.
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  Speaker 2: For its congestion, right but now you have to imagine
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  Speaker 2: that normal chaos magnified, say tenfold, by last minute holiday shopping.
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  Speaker 2: It stops being a market, you know, it becomes something else.
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  Speaker 1: It's a survival mission, a slow moving, intensely physical one.
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  Speaker 2: That's a good way to put.
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  Speaker 1: It, So try to picture it. The air is thick,
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  Speaker 1: not just with heat, but with this noise, thousands of voices,
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  Speaker 1: car horns, merchants, shouting. The crowd is so dense you're
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  Speaker 1: literally being pushed and pulled along.
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  Speaker 2: Total sensory overload. And that's the world where we've twenty
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  Speaker 2: year old sha he knows she's from block. All the
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  Speaker 2: crure and She's there with her mom and younger sisters
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  Speaker 2: doing what basically every other.
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  Speaker 1: Family is doing, getting the new e'd close.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, just finishing up the shopping.
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  Speaker 1: So they finish, they make their way to the main
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  Speaker 1: bus stop. They're looking for bus seventeen to get home.
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  Speaker 1: But when that bus finally pulls up, the entire crowd
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  Speaker 1: around them just cow. It becomes this single violent wave
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  Speaker 1: surging for the doors.
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  Speaker 2: It's pure brutal competition just to get.
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  Speaker 1: A spot, it is, and that moment when the bus
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  Speaker 1: doors hiss open, that's when the normal chaos tips over
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  Speaker 1: into being genuinely dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: It forces these terrible choices on people.
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  Speaker 1: Shins his mother. She's trying to be protective, right, so
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  Speaker 1: she puts all her energy into just shoving the younger
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  Speaker 1: kids through the crush of the front door. Shihina's is
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  Speaker 1: right behind her.
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  Speaker 2: The mother makes it on she does, but.
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  Speaker 1: Just as Shenas tries to step up, she feels it
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  Speaker 1: a hand harassment. It's immediate, it's terrifying, and she realizes
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  Speaker 1: she's trapped in the absolute tightest part of the crowd, exposed.
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  Speaker 2: And her first instinct is just retreat, get out. She
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  Speaker 2: gives up on the front door, thinking, you know, maybe
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  Speaker 2: the back door is safer, less crowded.
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  Speaker 1: It's a calculated risk, a split second decision to get
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  Speaker 1: away from the immediate threat.
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  Speaker 2: But that short distance, just a few meters, turned out
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  Speaker 2: to be catastrophic.
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  Speaker 1: She gets to the rear steps of the bus, she
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  Speaker 1: probably thinks she's safe for a second, and then a
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  Speaker 1: hand shoots out grabs her.
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  Speaker 2: And it's not a helping hand.
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  Speaker 1: Not at all. It yanks her backward, violently, throwing her
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  Speaker 1: flat onto the pavement in the middle of a taba square.
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  Speaker 2: And this is where it just gets horrifying. She wasn't
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  Speaker 2: alone for a second. The source material is very clear
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  Speaker 2: on this. She was immediately.
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  Speaker 1: Surrounded not by one person, no, by four.
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  Speaker 2: Young men, and they began to assault her right there
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  Speaker 2: in broad daylight, in one of the most public places
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  Speaker 2: in the entire city.
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  Speaker 1: The audacity of it, the sheer brazenness, four men together
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  Speaker 1: in front of hundreds of people, This one act instantly
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  Speaker 1: elevated the whole incident. It became known as the al Ataba.
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  Speaker 2: Girl case, and it quickly spiraled into i mean, probably
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  Speaker 2: the biggest public opinion crisis to hit Egypt in the
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  Speaker 2: entire nineteen nineties.
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  Speaker 1: This wasn't just a crime, it was an act of
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  Speaker 1: social defiance.
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  Speaker 2: So let's talk about that immediate aftermath, because it was
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  Speaker 2: just pure panic and noise.
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  Speaker 1: She he knows his mother, she's on the bus. She
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  Speaker 1: hears the screams, and she has to descend frantically back
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  Speaker 1: into that same terrifying crowd, fighting against the flow to
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  Speaker 1: find her daughter on the ground.
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  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine the terror and the raide she
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  Speaker 2: must have felt. She starts screaming too, but in Ataba Square,
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  Speaker 2: her cries are just swallowed or nothing.
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  Speaker 1: The noise is too loud, the traffic no one notices,
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  Speaker 1: and the most critical part, the crowd itself, those hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of potential witnesses. They were indifferent.
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  Speaker 2: And that indifference, that human shield they created, is what
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  Speaker 2: a nearby police officer saw a helmet recognized instantly.
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  Speaker 1: He sees what's happening, and he knows he can't physically
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  Speaker 1: wait into a crowd that big. It's just it's impossible.
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  Speaker 2: He needed something to shock the system, that could break
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  Speaker 2: that human formation all at once. Trying to do it
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  Speaker 2: manually would have just started a riot.
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  Speaker 1: Or worse, all four attackers would have just slipped away
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  Speaker 1: in the confusion, so he makes a drastic call.
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  Speaker 2: He pulls his service weapon.
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  Speaker 1: He does ah Sir Helmi pulls his firearm and fires
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  Speaker 1: two shots straight into.
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  Speaker 2: The air, not at anyone, But it was the sound.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, that sharp crack of gunfire cutting through the drone
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  Speaker 1: of the square. It was the only thing that could
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  Speaker 1: have shattered the crowd's focus.
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  Speaker 2: And the effect was immediate chaos. The people around Scheinas
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  Speaker 2: just scattered.
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  Speaker 1: And as they did, two of the attackers used that chaos,
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  Speaker 1: that scattering human shield, to make a run for it.
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  Speaker 1: They just vanished into the streets.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the detail that always stays with me. Even
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  Speaker 2: on the ground, in that state of shock, shah Nas
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  Speaker 2: maintained her grip on the other two.
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  Speaker 1: She did not let go.
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  Speaker 2: She held on.
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  Speaker 1: Officer Helmi tried to chase the two who ran, but
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  Speaker 1: it was useless. The crowd was still too dense. He
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  Speaker 1: came back, secured the two men she was holding and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: took them and Shahinas to the police station.
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  Speaker 2: And the second that report was filed, the national reckoning began.
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  Speaker 1: And this wasn't just some entry on a police blodder.
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  Speaker 1: This incident immediately blew up into a massive public opinion crisis. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: state security agencies were frankly just shocked.
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  Speaker 2: They saw a coordinated public assault in the country's most
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  Speaker 2: visible square as well, unprecedented.
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  Speaker 1: So the investigation had to move at a national pace.
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  Speaker 1: Shahinas was sent immediately to forensic medicine Al Tiba Alscheri.
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  Speaker 2: And the report that came back confirmed it a partial
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: rupture of the Hymen caused by a hand.
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  Speaker 1: That one forensic detail, especially in the context of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: nineties Egypt, meant the case was just explosive. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: just criminal. It carried this immense social weight.
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  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, the government knew it had a crisis. The
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  Speaker 2: national newspapers were tracking the case daily front page updates.
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  Speaker 2: Security agencies even put up a large financial reward, a
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  Speaker 2: bounty pretty much, Yeah, a bounty for any information on
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  Speaker 2: the two fugitives who had just melted back into the city.
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  Speaker 1: But the crime itself wasn't the only shocking part, was.
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  Speaker 2: It not at all? What really seemed to dismay the
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  Speaker 2: state agencies was the behavior of the bystanders. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: four young men assault a woman in a packed public.
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  Speaker 1: Square and nobody does anything.
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  Speaker 2: No one intervened. It was a massive blow to the
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  Speaker 2: public conscience, to the perceived social contract. When a crowd
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  Speaker 2: protects the aggressor instead of the victim, that signals a
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  Speaker 2: really deep.
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  Speaker 1: Problem, and that problem, that fault line ran right through
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  Speaker 1: Shahinas's life completely. Because of the intense public scrutiny, the stigma,
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  Speaker 1: she felt she had no choice. She quit her job
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  Speaker 1: and just confined herself to her home. She became a
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  Speaker 1: national symbol and at the same time a prisoner of shame.
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  Speaker 2: She was being punished for being the victim, and the state,
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  Speaker 2: I think, realizing that damage this was causing, they tried
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  Speaker 2: to do some damage control.
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  Speaker 1: They issued a publication ban on case details right to
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  Speaker 1: stop her photos from being spread.
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  Speaker 2: Around, exactly an attempt to restore some privacy, some dignity.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, the story was already.
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  Speaker 1: Out there, so the very society that failed to protect
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  Speaker 1: her had to then mobilize its leaders to rescue her
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  Speaker 1: from the shame that followed.
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  Speaker 2: It's a profound irony.
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  Speaker 1: This movement to support her became almost as big as
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  Speaker 1: story as the crime itself. Key figures, famous artists, they
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  Speaker 1: stepped forward. They refused to let her be isolated.
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  Speaker 2: And they very consciously tried to change the public narrative.
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  Speaker 2: This was crucial respected actresses like Amina Risk and Nadia Lutfi.
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  Speaker 2: They did something extraordinary. They visited her at home and
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  Speaker 2: they did.
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  Speaker 1: An interview that was published in the official press.
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  Speaker 2: Their message was crystal clear, Shahinaz is a courageous heroine
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  Speaker 2: who was wronged. She is not a source of shame.
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  Speaker 1: And that's social solidarity.
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  Speaker 2: It actually worked, It did. It gave her the strength
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  Speaker 2: she needed. The source material says. She eventually went back
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  Speaker 2: to her job, started living a normal life again. It
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  Speaker 2: was a victory for civic support, even if the criminal
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  Speaker 2: case was well another story.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, while her social rehabilitation was happening, the legal investigation
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  Speaker 1: was just hitting wall after wall. This is where it
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  Speaker 1: gets incredibly messy.
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  Speaker 2: The judicial process just slammed into a complete lack of
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  Speaker 2: reliable evidence. It started with the identification process itself.
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  Speaker 1: The investigators ran into a really puzzling problem when questioning Shanaz. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: what was that She could easily and very clearly identify
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  Speaker 1: the two arrested men, both named Gamal, who had held
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  Speaker 1: her legs during the assault.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense, she held onto them, but and.
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  Speaker 1: This is the contradiction the investigators couldn't get past. She
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  Speaker 1: struggled to clearly identify or even describe the other two men,
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  Speaker 1: the ones who held her hands.
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  Speaker 2: Even though they would have been right in front of
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  Speaker 2: her face.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly when you think about the psychology of shock, it's
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  Speaker 1: just bewildering. Why the clarity on the men further away
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  Speaker 1: and the vagueness on the ones right there.
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  Speaker 2: The defense would of course leverage that.
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  Speaker 1: Heavily, and that leads to the second, just massive obstacle,
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  Speaker 1: the tech deficit of nineteen ninety two. Today, a place
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  Speaker 1: like a toughest square would be blanketed in CCTV cameras.
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  Speaker 2: You'd have a clear video record of everything. In nineteen
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  Speaker 2: ninety two, nothing zero photographic or video evidence of the crime,
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  Speaker 2: of the perpetrators, of their escape. Nothing.
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  Speaker 1: So the whole case rested on human testimony. And if
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  Speaker 1: the technology failed, the witness has failed even harder.
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  Speaker 2: That's putting it mildly. Every single eyewitness, and we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about hundreds of people, failed to provide a clear, distinct,
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  Speaker 2: usable description of the assailants.
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  Speaker 1: This reinforces that initial theme, doesn't it the societal indifference either.
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  Speaker 2: They didn't want to see, or they just couldn't remember.
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  Speaker 1: So after all the media frenzy, the national crisis, the
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  Speaker 1: prosecution is left with only two men to put on trial.
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  Speaker 1: The two Shahinas held onto, the two fugitives vanished.
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  Speaker 2: Forever, and now the defense team for these two men,
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  Speaker 2: the two Gamals, they go on the offensive with no
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  Speaker 2: external evidence. The trial just boils down to who you believe,
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  Speaker 2: the victim or the two accused.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start with gamal On. He had a complication. He
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: claimed he had a physical disability, a limp right.
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  Speaker 2: His story was that he was just standing on the
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  Speaker 2: bus steps, fell because of the crowd surge, and was
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  Speaker 2: just lying next to Shihina's on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: An innocent bystander who literally fell into.
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  Speaker 2: The situation exactly, and his wife publicly supported that story,
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  Speaker 2: his unwavering claim of innocence through the whole trial.
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  Speaker 1: That's a real problem for the prosecution. How do you
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  Speaker 1: prove he wasn't just a victim of the crowd himself.
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  Speaker 2: You can't, not without evidence.
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  Speaker 1: And gamal iiO offered a similar story. He claimed he
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  Speaker 1: was just leaning against a wall nearby and was suddenly
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  Speaker 1: grabbed and beaten by the officer and the crowd in
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  Speaker 1: the confusion after the gunshots.
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  Speaker 2: So he's also claiming to be a victim of circumstance.
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  Speaker 1: The case was completely stalled. You had this overwhelming public
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  Speaker 1: demand for justice clashing with a complete lack of conclusive evidence.
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  Speaker 2: And the court knew four men were involved, but they
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  Speaker 2: only had two men in the dock. The whole system
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  Speaker 2: was stuck in this this vacuum.
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  Speaker 1: A full year passes, a year of testimonies, public pressure,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: reviewing every single report, and then the verdict.
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  Speaker 2: Despite that intense public opinion demanding and guilty finding, the
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  Speaker 2: court issued its final.
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  Speaker 1: Judgment acquittal for both men, and.
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  Speaker 2: Acquittal after a crime that dominated the national consciousness for
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: an entire year. The outcome was seismic, it must have been,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: but the court stood firm. They stated very clearly that
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: the evidence against the defendants was definitively insufficient. It was
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  Speaker 2: this powerful demonstration of judicial independence.
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  Speaker 1: The system refused to be swayed by public pressure. It
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: upheld the rule of law over the clamor of the public.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, and in a final solemn note, the court explicitly
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  Speaker 2: ordered the security agencies to continue their efforts to find
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  Speaker 2: and arrest the four actual perpetrators.
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  Speaker 1: But we know how this story ends.
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  Speaker 2: Yes to this day, the four individuals responsible for the
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  Speaker 2: assault on Shahina's have never been apprehended, never brought to justice.
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  Speaker 2: What's so fascinating here is the question it.
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  Speaker 1: Leaves us with, which is well?
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  Speaker 2: It raises this important question When you have this overwhelming
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: public sentiment demanding swift justice, but the established objective evidence
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  Speaker 2: is non existent, a vacuum created by failed technology and
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  Speaker 2: a silent citizenry, how is the justice system supposed to
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  Speaker 2: navigate that divide?
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  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you, the listener?
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  Speaker 1: It means that sometimes the most profound impact of a
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: crime isn't the verdict that's delivered, but the one that
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  Speaker 1: never comes. It's a reminder that justice is built on
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  Speaker 1: irrefutable evidence, and when that evidence literally vanishes into a
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  Speaker 1: crowd of indifferent people, the truth can remain perpetually unresolved,
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  Speaker 1: and society itself is forced to live with the chilling
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: reality of unpunished brutality.