Reem Hamed had just returned from a one-year scholarship at the University of Padua in Italy during her undergraduate studies, then completed her graduation project on synthetic DNA sequencing, obtaining her bachelor’s degree from the English-language biotechnology department of the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University in 2017.
Reem, then 22, dreamed of being appointed a teaching assistant at Nile University in the field of bioinformatics, but she was told she needed more postgraduate study.
Her scientific passion did not fade after she obtained a postgraduate diploma in bioinformatics from the Faculty of Computers at Ain Shams University and completed a research paper in botany with Egyptian colleagues on plant nodules and biomass production from rhizobia (soil bacteria that fix nitrogen after settling in the root nodules of legumes), published in 2020. She kept chasing her dream, enrolling in another diploma in bioinformatics at Nile University, but at the same time fate surprised her with her acceptance into the master’s programme of the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell at Paris-Saclay University in France, and she faced a great challenge in balancing her master’s studies in France with the remote diploma from Nile University.
Reem, who lived in university housing in the French town of Les Ulis, south-west of Paris, tried to balance the master’s and the diploma and gave it all her effort, but this required her to be in the laboratory for long periods, which drained her energy, so she had to ask her professor at Nile University to postpone the diploma until she finished her master’s. But after she obtained a master’s degree in genomics and genetics from Paris-Saclay University in 2022, she was accepted into the doctoral programme, and her determination to complete the diploma returned, despite the pressures of study. She began writing a study titled “Ageing and Genome Stability“, focusing on the regulation of gene expression in ageing, under the supervision of her French professor, Professor Carl Mann. However, her mysterious and sudden death in Paris on the evening of Thursday, 22 August, at the age of 29, brought down the curtain on her dreams and scientific passion, and opened the door to questions and a state of controversy that swept social media in Egypt.
A month before her death, Reem Hamed published posts on her personal Facebook account indicating that she was being watched by people, that her personal devices were being spied on and that she was being threatened over the research she was working on, stressing that she needed to report a threat to her life to security services. She deleted them days later, but left cryptic posts containing hints that her death was approaching and of her desire for “martyrdom”, and the possibility that she would not complete her professional and scientific journey because of what she described as “corruption in the current environment”.
Zawia3 contacted Saleh Farhoud, head of the Egyptian community in France, who told us how people found the body of the Egyptian researcher in front of the university housing for postgraduate students and informed the French police, who took custody of the body and transferred it to forensic medicine to determine the cause of death, and immediately informed the Egyptian embassy and consulate in Paris. He pointed out that the French authorities are keeping the details of the incident under wraps until the investigations of forensic medicine and the Ministry of Justice are completed, along with the examination of surveillance cameras and the late researcher’s room and personal belongings, to verify her claims of being spied on and watched, and to determine whether the death was natural or the result of an accident, a fight, suffocation or poisoning, explaining that the forensic report is supposed to be issued one week to ten days after the body was found.
Regarding the posts the late researcher wrote earlier, Farhoud denies that Reem had appealed for help to the Egyptian community in France, whose team in such cases carries out investigations and takes legal measures to protect a threatened member of the Egyptian community, stressing that she also did not file a report with the Egyptian embassy or consulate in Paris for protection, and noting the possibility that she had been under psychological pressure that pushed her to write those cryptic posts.
The head of the Egyptian community reveals that Reem Hamed’s death was preceded two days earlier by the murder of a young Egyptian man in Paris, with police investigations revealing that his friend had stabbed him, pointing out that Egyptians in France are not subjected to persecution or discrimination, especially as many female students wear the hijab and have not filed complaints of being harmed or persecuted.
The Haemorrhage of Egyptian Minds
Egyptians are linking the mysterious death of the Egyptian researcher to the killing of Dr Samira Ezzat, director of the MARC Center for Clinical Trials Research and scientific research consultant at Shefaa Al Orman hospitals, in June 2022, after she fell from the lift of a well-known pharmaceutical company in 6th of October City, after a maintenance worker had assured her that the lift’s fault had been repaired.
Bloggers and social media users considered Reem Hamed’s death an extension of a number of mysterious deaths and assassinations of Egyptian scientists since the 1950s, described as the series of the haemorrhage of Egyptian minds. The death of Egypt’s first scientist in space research, Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, in Alexandria in January 1950 had raised suspicions that he was poisoned; Egypt’s first female nuclear scientist, Samira Moussa, was killed on American soil in August 1952, in the US state of California, without the details of the incident being disclosed or a perpetrator identified; and on 13 June 1980, Egyptian nuclear scientist Dr Yehia El-Mashad was found dead with his head smashed in room 941 of the Meridien Hotel in Paris, and the case was recorded against an unknown perpetrator.
Paris-Saclay University has not issued any statement or comment on the death of the Egyptian doctoral researcher, has not referred to the mysterious death on its website or any of its social media platforms, and did not respond to Zawia3‘s emails to the university.
Eshraq Ayman, a friend of the late researcher and her classmate in the biotechnology department, believes she may have been harmed after threats she had been receiving, revealing in a post on her personal Facebook account that she had been afraid for her friend, which prompted her to contact the Ministry of Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs to find out how to file a report. She was told the procedures and that the report must be filed by one of her relatives, so she called her to tell her, and Reem promised she would file a report, but Eshraq does not know whether she did or not, or what happened to her if she had filed a report with the relevant authorities in Egypt.
Eshraq is astonished at claims that Reem took her own life as a result of psychological pressure, believing she was psychologically balanced but was being intimidated, in addition to being exposed to gases and having substances added to her food, according to what she wrote in a post on her account.
The late researcher had written a post on 10 August asking for recommendations for a trustworthy Egyptian female life coach, which led some to interpret it as a sign that she was facing life pressures before her death. A number of social media users also linked the posts Reem had published on her personal account about a month earlier to symptoms of paranoia or schizophrenia, as they claimed.
Marginalisation
Omnia Mohamed, a friend of Reem Hamed and her classmate in the biotechnology department at the Faculty of Agriculture, recounts how the late researcher was subjected to bullying and racist behaviour because of her Arab origin and wearing the hijab, explaining that she herself faced similar racist situations when she too travelled to a European country for postgraduate studies, but that she is not sure whether Reem was really subjected to threats and surveillance. She adds: “We tried to comfort her and advised her to report it, and she did report it, but no help came to her.”
“In our country, we faced marginalisation of our specialisation and a lack of job opportunities for us as graduates of the biotechnology department at the Faculty of Agriculture, so 13 graduates of our class of 19 had to travel abroad to work and study,” Reem’s friend tells Zawia3.
Omnia denies, according to the information she has, that her friend fell from her room window or was thrown, explaining that her family itself does not know how she died and is waiting for the French police investigations to end, hoping that her friend’s family will reveal what happened to her in the last period before her death, once they receive her body.
Speaking to Zawia3, the university professor supervising the diploma Reem was studying remotely at Nile University stressed that his student was hardworking, ambitious, cooperative with others and knew her goals well, explaining that she told him she had begun to feel academic pressure and wanted to postpone the diploma temporarily until she finished her postgraduate studies, but she did not talk to him about being harassed, and he refused to comment on some people’s claims that she had a mental illness.
The Nile University professor, who declined to be named, explains that most graduates of biotechnology departments in Egypt resort to travelling abroad for postgraduate studies and work because of the lack of resources available in Egypt and the high prices of the chemicals this specialisation requires, which delays scientific research and makes it take several additional years before seeing the light.
Zawia3 contacted Rafik Hamed, the late researcher’s eldest brother, by phone to ask about the nature of the pressures and threats she faced, but he refused to comment or make any press statements.
Nader Hamed, the researcher’s second brother, had written on his personal Facebook page that his family spared no effort and immediately contacted the relevant authorities and the office of lawyer Seif El-Masry to follow up on the procedures in France and coordinate the return of Reem’s body to the homeland, and authorised him to defend her rights and the family’s rights, calling for caution in publishing any news that could harm the course of justice or infringe on the rights of the late Reem. He explained that the case is under investigation by the French prosecution and that no official report has been issued so far regarding the death or confirming or denying any suspicion of a crime, and that the family reserves its legal right to take all legal measures against anyone who defamed it or published information without verification, as he put it, ending his post with the hashtag Justice for Reem Hamed.
However, what the late researcher’s brother wrote angered some, who attacked the family and accused it of losing the rights of its daughter, whom they believe was assassinated, while others interpreted the posts Reem had published on her personal account and later deleted, which her brother Nader asked in another post not to circulate, out of respect for his sister’s privacy, as evidence that she suffered from a psychological disorder. Following these accusations, her brother deactivated his personal account.
While no statement has been issued by the late researcher’s family or lawyer regarding her psychological state before her death, a Facebook account in the name of Roaa Khaled, the daughter of her sister Rabab Hamed, published a short post saying: “Justice for Reem Hamed… Reem did not suffer from any psychological or physical illness, and her work and research are the best proof.”
The Foreign Ministry Awaits the French Investigations
Zawia3 contacted an official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who denied in a phone call that the ministry had confirmed information on whether the young researcher Reem Hamed’s death was due to natural or criminal causes, saying the ministry is waiting for the French authorities to complete their investigations and for what they will report to the Egyptian embassy in Paris. The source also denied having information about the Egyptian embassy or consulate in Paris receiving any official report from the late researcher about being harassed or threatened.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates had published a statement on its page, confirming that it is closely following the death, explaining that as soon as the Consulate General in Paris received the news of her death, it contacted the French authorities to learn the circumstances and obtain the report of the competent French authorities on the cause of death, and to speed up the necessary procedures to issue the death certificate and ship her body to the homeland as soon as the investigations are completed.
For her part, MP Ghada Agamy, a member of Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, stresses to Zawia3 that the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been making efforts to communicate with the French authorities from the first moments the body of the late researcher Reem Hamed was found, and is awaiting their report on the causes and circumstances of the death, on the basis of which the ministry will issue a statement, explaining that the ministry knows nothing about the circumstances in which the researcher’s body was found.
The member of the Foreign Relations Committee does not know whether Reem Hamed filed an official report with the Egyptian embassy or any official body regarding her claims of being spied on, watched and threatened.
Ambassador Rakha Ahmed Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, believes there is a missing link in the matter of Reem’s death in France, namely the causes of death, the nature of the motives behind that crime if it occurred, and the person or persons responsible. All these matters are the business of the French security authorities, with whom the Egyptian consulate in France is following developments in the case. He explains that in deaths where there may be suspicion of a crime, a kind of secrecy occurs to prevent distraction and confusion and the disappearance of evidence or persons connected to the case, which applies to Reem’s case, especially since she wrote that she was being watched and threatened.
Rakha does not believe the late researcher’s research was a reason for her death, since it relates to a scientific field and not one connected to security, but he does not rule out that the matter could be a hate crime, if the death resulted from a murder, as similar incidents have occurred against victims of Arab or Muslim origin. He explains that some Egyptians and Arabs in Europe have suffered persecution and harassment because of their political positions supporting Palestine, hostile to the Israeli occupation and critical of the West, but Reem Hamed’s social media accounts and the testimonies of some of her friends did not show any political interest on her part, stressing that the matter now depends on the French police investigations and that no one should jump to conclusions before the results of those investigations appear.
Whether the death of Egyptian researcher Reem Hamed was an extension of the mysterious deaths of Egyptian scientists whose perpetrators were never revealed, or a natural death due to physical causes or psychological pressure, the haemorrhage of Egyptian minds will not stop as long as Egyptian brain drain continues, a term referring to the movement of highly qualified individuals from their country to another.
The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics revealed in the 2023 issue of its Population magazine that their number reached (9.5) million citizens, and according to the latest statistics of the Union of Egyptians Abroad, published in 2015, Egypt ranks first in the world in the number of scientists abroad, numbering about 86,000, including 1,250 scientists in rare specialisations, coinciding with a decline in Egypt’s ranking in scientific research to 135th out of 144 countries, according to the Global Competitiveness Report for 2014/2015.
