Cairo: Prominent Egyptian blogger Bassem Sabry, who played a key role in the 2011 uprising that forced former president Hosni Mubarak out of power, has died, his friends said Wednesday. He was 31.
No criminal motive is suspected in Sabry’s death, they said.
He fell off his apartment balcony in the Cairo quarter of Mohandessin Tuesday after suffering a fit of consciousness due to diabetes.
Sabry, son of famed script writer Farouq Sabry, was an advocate of democracy and human rights. In his last Facebook post, he lashed out at capital punishment, after more than 700 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi were sentenced to death on charges of violence.
Former vice president and peace Nobel Prize winner Mohammad Al Baradei lauded Sabry as a “comrade”.
“I ask all youth of the revolution to offer prayers of mercy and forgiveness for a comrade and a noble man who we lost when we badly needed him,” Al Baradei, now staying in Austria, tweeted.
Sabry was a member of Al Destour, a liberal party founded by Al Baradei. Sabri was also a member of a campaign promoting a presidential bid by leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi.
The campaign paid a tribute to Sabry. “He had a short life, but he had his name immortally recorded in the annals of those struggling for a better future,” it said in an online statement
Hundreds of pro-democracy activists Wednesday attended a funeral for Sabry held at a mosque in Cairo.
