Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

“Long live the struggle of Egyptian women”

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Trigger Warning

Between June 30 and July 3, nearly 100 women were subjected to mass sexual assaults by mobs of men at Tahrir Square in Egypt, the Human Rights Watch reported.

Later on July 3, @OpAntiSH tweeted: “So far (July 3rd, 1:30 am) we got 68 reports of mob assaults, we intervened in 46, & have at least one rape case.”

Volunteers with OpAntiSH and Tahrir Body Guard have stopped scores of attacks across those days. Today they are taking the day off, gearing up for more interventions tomorrow during the political protests planned.

On top of the violence, government leaders blame WOMEN for the attacks, saying they shouldn’t be there.

In response, a coalition of groups in Egypt issued a statement yesterday, this is an excerpt:

“The undersigned organizations and groups believe that the attempts of the authorities to use the incidents of sexual assault against the women to “smear” the opposition’s demonstrations mark the rock bottom of the official rhetoric of state institutions. The Egyptian authorities have failed to interpret the violent sexual assaults against women in spaces of demonstration as an extension to years of neglecting sexual crimes against women and the usage of these crimes by successive authorities, starting from the regime of former president Hosni Mubarak up to the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, to punish women for their presence in the public space. Rather than attempting to find solutions to the crisis of sexual assault, the Egyptian authorities use the assaults as a smearing tool against the opposition, in an attempt to portray them as a group of “thugs”.

The undersigned organizations and groups believe that the strategy of using sexual assault to “stigmatize” women demonstrators opposing Mohammed Morsi is irresponsible and will not contribute to eradicating rape and sexual assault. Sexual violence has become a stable feature of the streets of Egypt, and not necessarily associated with large crowded demonstrations. The approach adopted by the Egyptian authorities only contributes to the aggravation of the problem.

The responsibility of protecting peaceful protesters falls on the Egyptian authorities, according to international law. Egyptian authorities are also responsible for investigating incidents of sexual assault and rape, guaranteeing that perpetrators are brought to justice, and providing adequate, effective, prompt, and appropriate remedies, including the rehabilitation of survivors; which entails providing psychological care as well as legal and social services, according to international human rights law. The Egyptian authorities must bear its legal responsibility towards the survivors of sexual violence rather than using the incidents as political tools against the opposition.

Long live the struggle of Egyptian women.”

Agreed and co-signed. We stand in solidarity with Egyptian women and everyone who is working hard to make sure they are safe in public spaces!

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Street Harassment: Lessons from Egypt

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The first time I ever saw an incident of street harassment in Tahrir was long before the Square had made it into world news headlines. I distinctly remember the sight of the woman holding her harasser by the collar of his shirt while packs of passersby gathered around bombarding her with implorations to let him go.

But what did he do? What do you mean he harassed you, was it just talk? Let him go! Are you really going to report him over THAT? The police will not do anything; just let him go. Harassment? That doesn’t happen here, what are you trying to get out of this poor man?

“I’ll let him go over my dead body,” she said flatly.

That afternoon, I watched this young woman literally drag her harasser all the way to the police station. I, like the gathering crowd, found the idea of reporting a harassment case to the police exasperating; at best, they would ignore her pleas to report, at worst, she would have been a laughing stock for the officers. Indeed, after a while, the man emerged from the police station, looking quite flustered but otherwise free from charges. The woman he harassed soon followed looking quite unbothered herself.

“Why did you report him knowing they will just laugh at you?” I decided to approach her and ask.

“I don’t care what they will or will not do, I wanted everyone to watch him being dragged around for harassing a woman and I wanted him to see everyone watching him,” she said.

Before the revolution, it was incredibly rare for anyone to use the term “harassment” in Egypt; they called it other things, mostly “catcalls” and even then the matter was never considered a serious problem. Only when physical assault was involved was it taken seriously.

That street harassment was not addressed as such is partially linked to the lack of political space from which we may have highlighted the issue as a human rights violation.

Then, as the January 2011 revolution took place, we saw a whole other face to street harassment. Mob attacks by the hundreds on both journalists and protestors soon made it into headlines news. All of a sudden, people started talking about street harassment as a criminal act, as something that ought to be punishable by law.

And then the fury died down as we all went back to our daily lives. The problem then was that street harassment became part of our daily routines. With the lack of order and stability that followed the revolution, physical and verbal harassment became an everyday thing for the women of Cairo. Before, harassers would carry out the deed with a sense of privacy- in isolated places, late at night etc.- tapping into the common notion that street harassment was not really a problem for Egyptians and therefore making it more difficult for us to shame the behaviour.

After 2011, street harassment became reflective of a certain power dynamic. Every major protest came with a renewed wave of attacks, often employed as a deterrence tool against political expression. But this time, we were ready. The formation of Tahrir Bodyguard, Op Anti-SH and other movements not only provided physical protection of female protestors, but also enforced the reality that Egyptian women will stop at nothing to take ownership of their streets and of their revolution.

On June 30, despite the continued brutality of sexual assault, more Egyptian women took the streets than ever. While our issues with street harassment are not resolved, our continued fight against it has come to mean one thing- that we are on the right track.

 Yasmine Nagaty is a Political Science graduate and an aspiring writer from the American University in Cairo and currently works at the Egyptian NGO Misr ElKheir. You can follow her on Twitter.

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Egypt: Volunteers Stop Sexual Attacks

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Members of @TahrirBodyGuard, via their Twitter account

Trigger Warning

Once again Egyptians are protesting at Tahrir Square in the hopes of creating good and lasting political change, and once again mobs of men have attacked many of the women present at Tahrir and the surrounding areas.

The anti-harassment group OpAntiSH said they received 46 reports of mob sexual assaults in the vicinity on June 30, from 6 p.m. Sunday evening until around 2 a.m. Monday. The most common areas for these assaults were the entrances leading to the Square. They stress that many more attacks likely occurred; these were just the number of assaults reported to them.

On July 1, OpAntiSH has reported that 17 additional attacks occurred.

From the OpAntiSH press release:

“Operation Anti-SexualHarassment/Assault (OpAntiSH) observed cases of physical attacks against women by men using sticks at the entrance/exit to the Sadat metro station in front of Kentucky Fried Chicken and received reports of women being kidnapped in vehicles. The increasing seriousness of sexual assaults on female protestors is a reflection of the increasing sexual violence against women in general,perpetrated by both society and the state, which negatively impacts women’s participation in the public sphere.

OpAntiSH expresses its disappointment in the government’s response to mob sexual assaults on female protestors. While the presidency has exploited the incidents for political gain in the media, a source at the Ministry of Health violated the privacy of one of the survivors, publishing details of the assault, her name, and the name of the hospital in which she was receiving treatment, in a blatant violation of the most basic rules and ethics of the medical profession…

OpAntiSH would like to salute all the women in the squares of Egypt, as well as the male and female volunteers in the groups (Tahrir Bodyguard & OpAntiSH) who protect Tahrir Square and intervene in cases of mob sexual harassment and assault, despite the great risks they face.”

HarassMap Volunteer Mohamed El-khateeb wrote a first-person account about incidents on June 30. This excerpt gives you a feel for the kinds of attacks happening and the brave, stressful and intense work the anti-harassment volunteers are doing to try to keep women safe:

“** 23:07 Hrs **

We received a phone call from a colleague/friend regarding a sexual harassment incident happening at the

Mohamed Mahmoud Metro exit (the one close to Hardees). Told my intervention team colleagues and we all rushed towards the place. It was extremely crowded and by the time we got to the metro, the crowd already moved towards belday cafe, right behind the main Tahrir Menasa (stage).

Apparently some of the bystanders helped smuggle the women inside Belady Cafe and some of the workers went out to protect the cafe and pulled down the metal gates. Our intervention team managed to get to the place, some of them were able to get into the store.

We tried all tricks we knew, like pretending that the women left and that nothing is happened, yet all in vain.

We tried to form a safe buffer area out of the cafe, joining arms and elbows to form a human shield against the harassers and curious crowds. Some of the bystanders, wanted to take me out of the circle under the premise that they wanted to form a safe corridor (I wasn’t wearing an OpAntiSH T-Shirt).

I tried to maintain my position. After a few minutes the circle broke, and I was pulled out of the place, pushed towards the metal facades/gates covers the shops beside the cafe, then carried away with crowds towards Tahrir street.

People we trying to beat me with belts, sticks. A guy was spilling some form of liquid that made the crowd run away in a stampede style. (turned out afterwards that it was boiling water).

I went around towards the the square (A green metal fence, blocks the area between the pavement of Belady cafe and the square itself), sent an update by phone to my colleagues and tried to get back again to the place. I also saw a few volunteers from Tahrir bodyguards nearby and informed them of the incident. They rushed in to help us.

The crowds were still at the place. A semi-safe corridor was formed by the people. At this moment, and by utter coincidence, a couple (A woman and a man) crossed from Tahrir st to hardees and passed through the corridor.

The crowd (who were now held off by OpAntiSH, Tahrir body guard volunteers and helpful bystanders) wanted to attack the couple and harass the woman. They pushed in hard onto the human shield.

Luckily they couldn’t overthrow the volunteers and nothing happened. At this point I really wished I had a functioning camera to take pictures of the crowd faces and what had just happened (I was using my basic Nokia phone cause my blackberry ran out of power).

After a few more minutes, finally the volunteers were able to take the women out of the cafe and into safety.

The incident ended at 23:25

SO BRAVE.

* Learn more about the sexual violence amidst the protests from watching a Wall Street Journal video report.

* Keep up with the latest news by following @opantish, @tahrirbodyguard and @harassmap.

* Please spread the word: #EndSH hotlines in & around #Tahrir: 01016051145/ 01157892357 & Landline 0227946787

* And please donate to support the work of HarassMap!

Thank you to every group and every person who is risking so much because they believe in freedom, choice, opportunity, and the right to protest safely. Sending much love and support from the SSH family to you all.

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Global Protest at Egyptian Embassies TODAY

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Image via @MahaIghbaria on Twitter

After the mass sexual assault attacks on women protesters at Tahrir Square, anti-harassment activists have organized a day of outcry worldwide and invite people to gather outside Egyptian Embassies worldwide at 6 p.m. their time. Stop Street Harassment is a proud supporting group of this effort and stands in solidarity with everyone speaking out, marching, and demanding safe streets, a safe world, for women.

Learn more via their Facebook event page (on that page, you can find a list of participating countries & their event information).

“We, citizens of all nationalities all around the world, will not watch in silence the spreading epidemic of sexual terrorism. We want to show our support, solidarity and admiration for the assaulted who paid the price of the ongoing Egyptian revolution with their own flesh, and to the heroic volunteers who are risking their lives for a safe Tahrir.

Therefore on Tuesday February 12, 2013, at 6:00 pm local time, we will gather in front of the Egyptian embassy in our city/country.”

Follow the hashtag #GlobalProtestFeb12 on Twitter.

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Egypt: 1000s March Today, Feb 12 Protest Planned

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Today’s Protest. Image via @Gsquare86

During the Jan. 25 protests this year in Cairo, Egypt, there were numerous instances of mob sexual violence against women (read some of their stories). Various anti-harassment groups patrolled Tahrir Square and volunteers were able to help break up most of the mobs but even still, many women required medical attention after they were safe.

Today, more than 1000 people marched in Cairo to protest the violence against women. View photos.

Anti-harassment groups are asking people worldwide to rally in front of Egyptian Embassies on Tuesday, February 12, at 6 p.m. (in whatever time zone you’re in) to protest what they see as the government’s lack of support for stopping such attacks and for perhaps hiring impoverished men to initiate attacks.

Stop Street Harassment is proud to be one of the supporting groups of this effort. If you live near an Embassy, I urge you to show your support and add your presence/voice/body to amplify these efforts.

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