Ref: Untuk melihat video footage, click situs di bawah ini :
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/20127414100955560.html
Sexual violence rises in Egypt's Tahrir
Increasing number of women fall victim to gang assaults in square that was at
the centre of last year's revolution.
Sally El-Sabbahy Last Modified: 05 Jul 2012 14:27
Cairo, Egypt - Nearly a year and a half after Lara Logan was sexually assaulted
by a mob of men in Tahrir Square, women have increasingly been coming forward
with disturbing personal testimonies of similar attacks.
Natasha Smith, a British journalism student who was in Cairo on a research
internship, recently lit up the social media sphere with a detailed blog
account of an attack she suffered in Tahrir.
The posting recounts how a horde of men encircled and quickly overpowered
Smith, who was accompanied by two male friends, on the outskirts of the Square
on June 24.
"Hundreds of men pulled my limbs apart and threw me around. They were
scratching and clenching my breasts and forcing their fingers inside me in
every possible way," she wrote. "Although a few men tried to form a human
shield around me, offering me rags to cover my bruised body, men were still
able to touch me. There were just too many."
After being hidden in a tent, Smith only escaped her attackers by donning a
niqab and being smuggled out of Tahrir by a man who ordered her not to cry for
fear it would alert her assailants to her identity.
In another account, an anonymous victim, who called herself "C", was also
subjected to a vicious gang assault in Tahrir on June 2 after being separated
from her group of friends.
"Before I knew it, I was thrown up against a wall where a motorcycle was
parked," she recalled in her testimony to the Egyptian centre, Nazra for
Feminist Studies, a feminist organisation that has been seeking to record as
many of these incidents as possible. "I was standing on top of the bike while
my friend and a few other men tried to make a half circle to protect me. But
there were more men trying to hurt me than protect me and I was grabbed all
over and my pants and shirt were ripped."
After being dragged into the foyer of a nearby apartment building, "C" was
continuously violated until she was finally rescued by a group of men that hid
her with a family living in one of the flats. Much like Logan and Smith, the
men attacking her not only forced their fingers into her body repeatedly, but
also brutally beat her throughout the attack.
A surge in violence
The month of June ushered in a series of startlingly volatile sexual assault
cases across Tahrir.
"In areas where there is conflict or transition or clashes, there is
always violence against women. "
- Dalia Abd El Hameed, researcher
In addition to recorded individual attacks like those above, an attempted
women's rally scheduled to take place in the Square on June 8 ended in
terrorwhen the women participating in the demonstration were beaten and
violently groped, despite having male companions form a human chain around them
for protection.
While these are not the first such incidents - the women demonstrating in
commemoration of International Woman's Day in Tahrir on March 8, 2011 were also
groped and attacked until the intervention of an army soldier - private
organisations like Nazra are saying that June witnessed a sudden and alarming
increase in their frequency.
Dalia Abd El Hameed, a researcher for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal
Rights (EIPR), confirmed a noticeable increase in the violence.
"While sexual assault was also a case in the first days of the revolution, it
was less obvious and less harsh and wasn't committed by gangs… what's
remarkable about these [incidents] is that they are [all] gangs," she
explained. "There was the incident of Lara Logan and a couple others, but other
than that it was primarily harassment in the frontlines in places like Mohamed
Mahmoud Street where the violence was highest."
According to Abd El Hameed, one possible cause for the rise in violence is the
general increase in violence throughout the country since January 2011. "The
process of militarisation that the country is undergoing now is creating a
parallel culture of normalised violence," she said. "In areas where there is
conflict or transition or clashes, there is always violence against women."
A high-ranking police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also
linked the increase in sexual violence to "the overall instability in the
country and the lack of law enforcement".
He added that it was especially true in Tahrir, where "the police are as
helpless as anyone else. They fear the crowd would turn on them."
No justice
In spite of growing sexual violence in the Square, it is unclear how - or if -
these cases are being investigated.
The anonymous police officer explained that daily reports containing all of the
crimes registered in police stations throughout Cairo are sent on a daily basis
to the Office of the Commissioner of the Police in the city's Bab el Khalk
district.
The reports are then supposed to be reviewed by the commissioner, but when
asked about how the department follows up, the officer replied, "[only] God
knows what happens".
In addition, the official also revealed his suspicion that officers omit some
incidents from the reports to give the impression that they are managing crime
effectively, and sometimes discourage sexual assault victims to file cases by
"mentioning how shameful the whole process will be for the victims' families".
In a report published in 2008 by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR),
only 2.4 per cent of Egyptian women and 7.5 per cent of foreign women in Egypt
victimised by sexual violence said they reported the incident to the police.
Among the reasons they gave were the beliefs that the police would be
ineffective, or that filing a report could negatively impact their reputations.
Twitter response
A sense of frustration and helplessness about the sexual violence in Tahrir has
become increasingly evident across social media platforms, which have been set
ablaze with the subject since the beginning of June.
The Stream - Egyptian bloggers fight harassment
One of the organisers of the doomed demonstration on June 8 and a popular
figure in the local women's rights movement, @sallyzohney, tweeted that same
day: "Stop calling it harassment, a march of over 100 was attacked in #tahrir
and no one gives a [expletive]. I'm sick to my stomach. It's assault. #EndSH."
Another popular Egyptian activist, @NoorNoor1, tweeted on June 26 that Smith's
account "nearly brought me to tears", also ending his tweet with "#EndSH."
The hashtag #EndSH stands for "End Sexual Harassment"; its recent predominant
use in the Egyptian twitter scene is a strong indication of how much attention
the violence has drawn in social media outlets.
But amidst online outrage, twitter has also showcased varying degrees of denial
among the Egyptian twitter community.
@RositaMexica, a friend of "C" who was also assaulted on June 2, angrily
tweeted: "I'm getting disgusted by tweeps who don't find @natasha_journo story
credible becuz no1 else tweeted about it."
What next?
Despite the escalating violence, Abd El Hameed said that women should not stop
protesting in Tahrir.
"The right to protest and to peaceful assembly is ensured for every person,
this is what any person is entitled to any place in the world. [We] don't have
the agency to tell women to go or not to go to a certain place," she said.
"What we should call for is that women must have the right to participate
safely."
Rebecca Chiao, the Founder of HarassMap.org, differed on this point, saying
"that the solution lies in society rather than in government. We waited years
for the government to pass a [sexual violence/harassment] law. They passed one
in March/April 2011, and nothing changed."
"I think we need to go back to community pride in the safety and dignity of our
streets, and I think the way to do this is to ask everyone to stop ignoring or
giving excuses and tell [offenders] to stop," she added.
Following the attack on Smith, Ikhwanweb, the official English language website
of the Muslim Brotherhood, posted a message from MP Azza al-Garf, who condemned
the incident and called for the enforcement of law.
However, it still remains to be seen if the Brotherhood's former party chairman
and Egypt's newly appointed head of state, Mohamed Morsi, will make sexual
violence against women in Tahrir and the rest of the country a priority on his
domestic agenda.
If last month was any indication of what is to come, Morsi should be acting
fast.
The Stream - Egyptian bloggers fight harassment
One of the organisers of the doomed demonstration on June 8 and a popular
figure in the local women's rights movement, @sallyzohney, tweeted that same
day: "Stop calling it harassment, a march of over 100 was attacked in #tahrir
and no one gives a [expletive]. I'm sick to my stomach. It's assault. #EndSH."
Another popular Egyptian activist, @NoorNoor1, tweeted on June 26 that Smith's
account "nearly brought me to tears", also ending his tweet with "#EndSH."
The hashtag #EndSH stands for "End Sexual Harassment"; its recent predominant
use in the Egyptian twitter scene is a strong indication of how much attention
the violence has drawn in social media outlets.
But amidst online outrage, twitter has also showcased varying degrees of denial
among the Egyptian twitter community.
@RositaMexica, a friend of "C" who was also assaulted on June 2, angrily
tweeted: "I'm getting disgusted by tweeps who don't find @natasha_journo story
credible becuz no1 else tweeted about it."
What next?
Despite the escalating violence, Abd El Hameed said that women should not stop
protesting in Tahrir.
"The right to protest and to peaceful assembly is ensured for every person,
this is what any person is entitled to any place in the world. [We] don't have
the agency to tell women to go or not to go to a certain place," she said.
"What we should call for is that women must have the right to participate
safely."
Rebecca Chiao, the Founder of HarassMap.org, differed on this point, saying
"that the solution lies in society rather than in government. We waited years
for the government to pass a [sexual violence/harassment] law. They passed one
in March/April 2011, and nothing changed."
"I think we need to go back to community pride in the safety and dignity of our
streets, and I think the way to do this is to ask everyone to stop ignoring or
giving excuses and tell [offenders] to stop," she added.
Following the attack on Smith, Ikhwanweb, the official English language website
of the Muslim Brotherhood, posted a message from MP Azza al-Garf, who condemned
the incident and called for the enforcement of law.
However, it still remains to be seen if the Brotherhood's former party chairman
and Egypt's newly appointed head of state, Mohamed Morsi, will make sexual
violence against women in Tahrir and the rest of the country a priority on his
domestic agenda.
If last month was any indication of what is to come, Morsi should be acting
fast.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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