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Egypt Sexual Assault Story Links

July 6, 2013 By HKearl

Trigger Warning

I am devastated by the enormous number of mass sexual assaults – when one is too many – that have occurred at Tahrir Square over the last few days. This is unacceptable. To learn more about what’s happened, and the brave people who are working to keep women safe, here are a few of the many recent news stories:

* Guardian, “80 sexual assaults in one day – the other story of Tahrir Square“

* The Daily Beast, “Egypt’s Plague of Sex Attacks“

* Your Middle East, “Almost 100 women sexually assaulted in Cairo, says HRW“

* MSNBC, “As Egyptian unrests grows, sexual assaults rampant“

* Think Progress, “How Activists Are Fighting Back Against The Egyptian Revolution’s Sexual Assault Problem“

* Al Jazeera, “Women sexually assaulted in Egypt protests“

* The Irish Times, “Guest post: On the ground in Egypt“

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Filed Under: News stories Tagged With: Egypt, HarassMap, Tahrir Square

Egypt: Harassment during #Jan25 Anniversary Protests

January 26, 2013 By HKearl

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolution in Cairo, Egypt, and with many protests planned that day at Tahrir Square, anti-harassment groups prepared for an increase in incidents of sexual harassment and assault. Unfortunately, their preparation was necessary. Via Twitter & Facebook:

@OpAntiSH: Initial count of mob sexual assaults we know of are around 19 cases, at least 6 needed medical attention #EndSh #OpAntiSH #Jan25 #Tahrir

@HarassMap: “There were approx 19 cases of sexual assault/rape cases (that we know of), 6 requiring medical attention according to the first count. We managed to help 2/3 or more of these cases but the situation is critical.”

@Beltrew: #endSH team doing amazing job trying to help women who are being attacked.It’s happening everywhere. I swear this must be organised #tahrir

@HarassMap: “another eye witness report of mob sexual assault in #Tahrir yesterday where some ppl used flamethrowers, knives & clubs to try to push the attackers away. #OpAntiSH #endSH #HarassMap”

Via Global Post:

“Several cases of sexual assault have been reported from Tahrir Square, as growing protests and confusion offer a cover for the harassment. According to sources on the ground, women are being groped, verbally assaulted, and harassed in the crowds.  As the crowds continue to gather in Tahrir at nightfall, women’s safety is a growing concern. Several volunteer forces, including one using the Twitter handle @TahrirBodyguard, is offering protection to women who are in Tahrir. Others are patrolling and intervening in incidents they see.”

Via Women’s eNews:

“”The main objective is to get the girl out. It is crisis management,” says Eba’a El-Tamami, marketing and communications unit head for HarassMap.

Based in the capital, HarassMap collects data about harassment, conducts community awareness and outreach programs and is part of a campaign called Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment-Assault, which draws strength from a coalition of groups. The organization’s goal, says El-Tamami, “is to counter what we suspect are organized, mob sexual assaults.”

Verbal sexual harassment is a common nuisance on Egyptian streets. However, HarassMap and other groups claim these mob attacks constitute something far more sinister. “We think it’s organized and planned,” says El-Tamami. “We think it’s probably paid thugs, but we don’t know who is paying them. There are quite a few eye-witness reports . . . People who have had this happen say it’s very difficult to imagine this is random or sporadic . . . . I don’t want to speculate but there are definitely people who have interest in positioning the square as dangerous and make protesters look like harassers or thugs.”

Not only has the Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment-Assault coalition undertaken work on the ground to try to keep women safe, but they also offer additional services. On their Facebook page, they wrote today:

“We don´t only intervene in mob sexual attacks, we help provide support (legal/medical/emotional) through our network of lawyers and doctors. If you need support, or know of someone who does, and/or for questions/inquiries what to do, please call us on our hotlines 01202390087 01016051145 01157892357 or online (Twitter @OpAntiSH, Facebook, Email opantish(at)gmail.com). Please share this”

I applaud these brave individuals for doing what no other group or government agency would do: ensure women’s safety as they exercise their political right to protest and shape their country’s agenda and empower women to fight back!

“@OpAntiSH: Most inspiring moments of yesterday, is when attacked women right after assault asked to join #OpAntiSH! This is RESISTANCE! #Jan25 #Tahrir“

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Filed Under: News stories Tagged With: Cairo, Egypt, HarassMap, Jan25, Tahrir Square

“We won’t be broken”

June 15, 2012 By HKearl

“Sexual harassment is a tool to keep women out of the public spaces (streets) and forcing them into the private spaces (homes),” wrote @jazkhalifa during the Egyptian-led #EndSH day of online activism this week. – via ABC News

That is why we must speak out against street harassment. It keeps women out of public spaces, and out of public life. There can never be gender equality as long as we’re relegated to the home.

It’s been one week since the attack on activists protesting against street harassment in Tahrir Square, Egypt. They’re still re-grouping, deciding on next steps and responses. In the meantime, where is a powerful video from the protest (before the attacks) you can watch and testimonies of people who were there that you can read.

“Women are at the heart of the revolution. We march, we lead chants, we sleep in sit-ins…We won’t be broken,” says one woman in the video.

Exactly. And so we’ve got to keep talking about this issue. We can’t let it fade away. Street harassment is real, it’s a problem, and it’s got to end.

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Filed Under: Stories, street harassment Tagged With: Egypt, protests, street harassment, Tahrir Square

Egyptian Women Refuse to be Silent

June 11, 2012 By HKearl

I’m cross-posting an article I wrote for Ms. Magazine’s Blog.

Violence against women demonstrators in Egypt erupted again on Tuesday when a frenzied mob of 200 men sexually assaulted a female protester in Tahrir Square. Then, during a rally on Friday to protest the incident, about 50 women and their male allies were themselves brutalized and chased away by another mob.

Journalist Ghazala Irshad, who was on the scene Friday, says that just as the small anti-harassment protest was gathering steam, the atmosphere shifted. “A few guys were like, ‘Why are you talking about this, there are more important issues to talk about?’ [Then] some guys started saying the women protesting were whores.”

Next, a phalanx of outside men overwhelmed the protective circle of male allies and cornered and groped the women. Rally organizer Sally Zohney says, “[The violence] started with individual cases of assaults against women in the march [and] then turned into beating and chasing everyone involved. Even men were badly beaten and attacked. It was very brutal.”

Participants were forced to flee for their safety.

Sadly, the violent scene is just the latest of many. Since the military took power last February, countless women–including journalists Lara Logan, Mona Eltahawy and Caroline Sinz, Egyptian actor Sherihan and the “woman in the blue bra“–have been groped and sexually assaulted by men in Tahrir Square. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other women have experienced verbal sexual harassment in a place that is supposed to symbolize freedom.

The lack of safety for women in the square symbolizes, instead, just how little women have benefited from the revolution they helped create. While pre-revolutionary Egypt was notorious for street harassment–a 2008 study by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) found that over 80 percent of Egyptian women had experienced it–the 18-day uprising in January and February 2011 was an unprecedented moment in which women could move freely in public space. Women seized the chance to become key players in the protests. “In 3 weeks of revolution we experienced no sexual harassment by men,” one woman told the Israeli paper Haaretz. “What civilization emerged! What culture!”

But that swiftly changed. Marchers in an International International Women’s Day 2011 demonstration in Tahrir Square were violently attacked. Months of assaults on women protesters followed. Some of the perpetrators have worn civilian clothes; others have been uniformed military police. During the violent government crackdown on pro-democracy protests this fall, which claimed more than 80 lives, over 100 women report being subjected to invasive “virginity tests” by the military.

Zohney believes that the attacks are systematic and fueled by unknown organized groups–whether by the military regime or others, she isn’t certain. She sees them as an attempt to discourage protests by intimidating revolutionaries and painting them in a bad light. Many of her friends have been attacked. Yet, she says, no serious security measures have been taken to stop the assaults. As a result, many women have avoided Tahrir Square, losing the opportunity to be full participants in the political process.

On the other hand, some women have spoken out against the violence. Logan, Eltahawy and others told their stories to the media. Women regularly share their harassment stories online. But, unfortunately, as on Friday, they, too, experience backlash and harassment.

If broad attempts to curb harassment in Egypt succeed, Tahrir Square may become safer for women protesters. Rebecca Ciao, a co-founder of Egyptian safe-streets organization HarassMap, says her group plans to continue conducting community outreach, spotlighting stories of harassment and allowing people to easily report incidents on an online map. Groups such as HarassMap, ECWR and the United Nations’ Safe Cities Programme have long spearheaded anti-harassment actions such as online story sharing, community safety audits, meetings, rallies, radio ads and, last month, a human chain against street harassment.

The attacks on women are also sparking anger among regular citizens. The “woman in the blue bra” became a national martyr, drawing thousands to march in solidarity in December.

No matter how many attacks they face, these brave women and men plan to speak out. Zohney and others are planning a multipronged response to Friday’s attacks that will include a larger, more organized march, as well as online testimonials by Friday’s victims and calls for more security in Tahrir Square. Activist Leil Zahra Mortada wrote in a Facebook post accompanying a photo album from the Friday march:

No matter how deep the wounds are, no matter how many times we get attacked or will be attacked, this will not stop nor silence us. More actions are planned, more noise will be made, and more proactive steps will be taken. We will see the end of sexual harassment and assault, both state-organized and individual! We will take down patriarchy, sexism and every form of violence based on gender or sexuality!

Brava. It is clear Egypt’s revolution will be incomplete until women win the streets.

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Filed Under: News stories, street harassment Tagged With: Egypt, EndSH, sexual assault, sexual violence, street harassment, Tahrir Square

Harassers attack anti-sexual assault protest at Tahrir Square in Egypt

June 9, 2012 By HKearl

Image by Emad karim

Following yet another huge group of men sexually assaulting a woman at Tahrir Square in Egypt this week, yesterday a group of about 50 women and their male allies took to the Square in protest. Unfortunately, soon after they arrived, they were harassed and attacked, some women were cornered and groped, and they had to flee for their safety.

Thanks for proving the point, harassers. Tahrir Square, like so many public places, is not safe for women. That makes me so angry.

Via ABC News:

“After Friday’s attack, many were already calling for another, much larger stand in the square against such assaults.

Another participant in Friday’s march, Ahmed Hawary, said a close female friend of his was attacked by a mob of men in Tahrir Square in January. She was rushed off in an ambulance, which was the only way to get her out, he said. After suffering from a nervous breakdown, she left Cairo altogether to work elsewhere in Egypt.

“Women activists are at the core of the revolution,” Hawary said. “They are the courage of this movement. If you break them, you break the spirit of the revolution.”


There’s a lot of media coverage of the protest, and I’ll have a better post up here about it tomorrow. I’m interviewing a few women who were there for a Ms. magazine blog post and will cross-post it here.

In the meantime, you can also see the conversation about what happened and the issue overall on the event Facebook page and on twitter, follow the #EndSH stream.

 

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Filed Under: street harassment Tagged With: sexual harasment, street harassment, Tahrir Square

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