The Rabea al-Adaweya sign made an appearance on Tuesday during the memorial service for the late South African leader Nelson Mandela at Soweto Stadium in Johannesburg.
While one of the participants was making a speech to the audience commemorating the late leader, someone standing behind him raised the symbol and pointed to it.
The Rabea al-Adaweya symbol of a hand raising four fingers refers to the violent dispersal of a pro-Mohamed Morsy sit-in in Rabea al-Adaweya Square in Cairo on 14 August. The dispersal left hundreds of people dead, including women and children. The word “rabea” is close in pronunciation to the word “four” in Arabic, thus the now-viral symbol was created to reference the event.
Thousands assembled in Soweto Stadium on Tuesday morning to commemorate Mandela.
The crowd sang the national anthem followed by speeches from South African President Jacob Zuma, US President Barack Obama, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and others who bid farewell to the Rainbow Nation’s founder.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
