The Maspero Massacre, October 2011

Mosireen

09 mins 01 secs

The first video we ever released was in response to the Maspero Massacre. In the immediate aftermath of the Army's murder of 28, mostly Coptic, protestors there was a whirlwind of spin and lies and obfuscation. The Army point blank denied that they had, or could ever, shoot at an Egyptian.

So we had to prove otherwise. Collecting testimonies, footage and YouTube clips we cut together a narrative of the night to counter the state's propaganda.

We made this video twice: once in Arabic and once in English. It is the only time we ever did this, but we made the decision in response to the Western media's lazy portrayal of the massacre as another incident of sectarian violence in a country long plagued by religious animus.

Maspero kicked us into production, it was the first of over 200 videos we would go on to release.