http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=29897
Alarming assaults on women in Egypt's Tahrir
07/06/2012
CAIRO (AP) — Her screams were not drowned out by the clamor of the crazed mob
of nearly 200 men around her. An endless number of hands reached toward the
woman in the red shirt in an assault scene that lasted less than 15 minutes but
felt more like an hour.
She was pushed by the sea of men for about a block into a side street from
Tahrir Square. Many of the men were trying to break up the frenzy, but it was
impossible to tell who was helping and who was assaulting. Pushed against the
wall, the unknown woman's head finally disappeared. Her screams grew fainter,
then stopped. Her slender tall frame had clearly given way. She apparently had
passed out.
The helping hands finally splashed the attackers with bottles of water to chase
them away.
The assault late Tuesday was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter who was
almost overwhelmed by the crowd herself and had to be pulled to safety by men
who ferried her out of the melee in an open Jeep.
Reports of assaults on women in Tahrir, the epicenter of the uprising that
forced Hosni Mubarak to step down last year, have been on the rise with a new
round of mass protests to denounce a mixed verdict against the ousted leader
and his sons in a trial last week.
The late Tuesday assault was the last straw for many. Protesters and activists
met Wednesday to organize a campaign to prevent sexual harassment in the
square. They recognize it is part of a bigger social problem that has largely
gone unpunished in Egypt. But the phenomenon is trampling on their dream of
creating in Tahrir a micro-model of a state that respects civil liberties and
civic responsibility, which they had hoped would emerge after Mubarak's ouster.
"Enough is enough," said Abdel-Fatah Mahmoud, a 22-year-old engineering
student, who met Wednesday with friends to organize patrols of the square in an
effort to deter attacks against women. "It has gone overboard. No matter what
is behind this, it is unacceptable. It shouldn't be happening on our streets
let alone Tahrir."
No official numbers exist for attacks on women in the square because police do
not go near the area, and women rarely report such incidents. But activists and
protesters have reported a number of particularly violent assaults on women in
the past week. Many suspect such assaults are organized by opponents of the
protests to weaken the spirit of the protesters and drive people away.
Mahmoud said two of his female friends were cornered Monday and pushed into a
small passageway by a group of men in the same area where the woman in the red
shirt was assaulted. One was groped while the other was seriously assaulted,
Mahmoud said, refusing to divulge specifics other than to insist she wasn't
raped.
Mona Seif, a well-known activist who has been trying to promote awareness about
the problem, said Wednesday she was told about three different incidents in the
past five days, including two that were violent. In one incident, the attackers
ripped the woman's clothes off and trampled on her companions, she said.
Women, who participated in the 18-day uprising that ended with Mubarak's Feb.
11, 2011 ouster as leading activists, protesters, medics and even fighters to
ward off attacks by security agents or affiliated thugs on Tahrir, have found
themselves facing the same groping and assaults that have long plagued Egypt's
streets during subsequent protests in the square.
Women also have been targeted in recent crackdowns on protesters by military
and security troops, a practice commonly used by Mubarak security that grew
even more aggressive in the days following his ouster. In a defining image of
the post-Mubarak state violence against women, troops were captured on video
stomping with their boots on the bare chest of a woman, with only her blue bra
showing, as other troops pulled her by the arms across the ground.
A 2008 report by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights says two-thirds of
women in Egypt experienced sexual harassment on a daily basis. A string of mass
assaults on women in 2006 during the Muslim feast following the holy month of
Ramadan prompted police to increase the number of patrols to combat it but
legislation providing punishment was never passed.
"If you know you can get away with sexual harassment and assault, then there is
an overall impunity," Human Rights Watch researcher Heba Morayef said.
The case is more paradoxical in Tahrir, which has come to symbolize the
revolution, but has lost its original luster among Egyptians weary of more than
a year of turmoil.
Women say they briefly experienced a "new Egypt," with strict social customs
casually cast aside during the initial 18-day uprising — at least among the
protesters who turned the square into a protected zone. But that image was
marred when Lara Logan, a U.S. correspondent for CBS television, was sexually
assaulted by a frenzied mob in Tahrir on the day Mubarak stepped down, when
hundreds of thousands of Egyptians came to the square to celebrate.
The post-Mubarak political reality for women also has deteriorated. They have
lost political ground in the 16 months since Mubarak's ouster — even winning
fewer seats in parliament in the first free and fair elections in decades. The
508-member parliament has only eight female legislators, a sharp drop from the
more than 60 in the 2010 parliament thanks to a Mubarak-era quota. Women's
rights groups also fear the growing power of Islamist groups will lead to new
restrictions.
Activists have no idea what finally happened to the woman in the red shirt. But
they have been alarmed by the rise in violent attacks on women, which has
chipped away at efforts to project the square as a utopia free of
discrimination and violence.
Seif said there is a responsibility inside the square.
"I think it is getting worse because people don't want to acknowledge it is
happening or do something to reduce it," said Seif. "It is our job to put an
end to it, at least in Tahrir."
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