Shafik resigned from office one day after a contentious interview on the Egyptian ONTV satellite network in which he was confronted by Alaa Al Aswany, author of "The Yacoubian Building", on Reem Maged's talk show Baladna bel Masry. Al Aswany was highly critical of Shafik during the broadcast, representing one of the first televised public criticisms of a high-ranking government official in Egyptian history. At one point, Al Aswany said about Shafik, "if your son had been one of those who got run over by the police cars, you would not have remained silent like that." Al Aswany furthermore accused Shafik of being a holdover of the regime that Egyptians had struggled to topple, and that he was unfit to represent Egyptians in the post-revolution era.