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Egypt: Personal Account from Jan. 25 Protest

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Editor’s Note: HarassMap, an anti-harassment group in Egypt, posted the following on their Facebook account over the weekend. They, and the author, gave me permission to share it here. Please share it widely and follow their work: Website | Facebook | Twitter.  Also, here is a Guardian article about the attacks on women on Jan. 25.

THIS IS A HARASSMAP STAFF MEMBER’S PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF MOB SEXUAL ATTACKS IN #TAHRIR ON #JAN25 DURING OUR EFFORTS TO COUNTER THEM AS PART OF Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault قوة ضد التحرش/الإعتداء الجنسي الجماعي

By Hussein ElShafie

When I joined the second round of OpAntiSH, as a core team member and a Midan team participant, I wasn’t anticipating the nightmare we all went through! I expected our mere presence in the heart of the protests to be an important warning sign for the mobs not to approach the protesters. I walked through the square distributing flyers and I was met with cooperation and gratitude from the side of the people. However, in certain instances I would get completely encircled by groups who would grab my shirt, poke me and snatch flyers from my hands. I didn’t give their attitude much attention and I attributed it to the Adrenalin rush they must be experiencing.

While I walked I saw two girls from our Safety team running towards me asking for help dealing with a report from the Omar Makram side. We all three ran across the square bumping into everyone until we arrived to Omar Makram and we found nothing going on! Later we were informed that while we mobilized our efforts to that area a girl was being mob-attacked by the Mohamed Mahmoud side.

I went back to our headquarters in Talaat Harb and shortly afterwards our rescue team arrived to the building. The girl was among them semi-comatose. A huge crowd appeared to accompany them to the door and then they tried to break in. We half-closed the door and pulled in our volunteers. They were all being squeezed, grabbed and unable to breathe. While I was pulling in one of them I felt as if I was pulling out a tissue from a tight tissue box. We got them all inside, shut the door and locked it. Harassers tried to break the door and they started a small fire. The numbers were insane. The armed mob was infuriated by the sight of the girls indoor and by the fact that they (harassers) could not reach them. I asked one of them from behind the door what is it that they wanted and he answered “What are all those women doing inside?!”. We turned off the lights and sent the girls upstairs trying to minimize our visibility. The nightmare kept going on for 2 hours until their energy faded and we managed to gather some help from outside to disperse the mob. Police was non-existent.

When it was a little safer to get out I went with another volunteer from the Intervention team to survey the square, and by the time we could make out the Mohamed Mahmoud area a tear gas canister was thrown at us. We ran back to the building suffocating, falling off every few seconds and unable to open our eyes. That very canister could have saved us a lot of terror and harassment if it had been thrown at the mobs that had attacked us perseveringly for two hours earlier.

We were specifically targeted by the mobs while the police kept a deaf ear to our situation. However, our brave men and women managed to survive it. We were getting fake reports to waste our efforts and yet we managed to interfere in more than a dozen mob harassment cases. Seeing the relentless efforts of our volunteers was but an affirmation of the nobility of our cause, and an inspiration for every human being who wants to voice out their right to be free, safe and respected.

بلغوا عن حوادث التحرش الجنسي | Report sexual harassment: SMS 6069 | http://harassmap.org/reports/submit

تطوعوا | Volunteer: bit.ly/ZsFKcL

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Imagine Egypt Without Sexual Harassment Campaign

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Via the Facebook Event Page from Op Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault:

TWO DAYS OF BLOGGING & TWEETING FOR HUMAN DIGNITY, JAN 23 & 24

“In light of the 2nd anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, let us remember those first 18 days in Tahrir. Do you remember that feeling of safety, dignity and mutual respect?

Compare this to today, where sexual harassment and sexual violence exist everywhere in Egypt..

– 2005 sexual harassment of female journalists
– 2006 mob sexual harassment downtown during Eid, and has been a “tradition” ever since
– 2011 “Aggressions referred to as “virginity tests
– 2012 Eman, the sexual harassment martyr
– Mob sexual assault/rape incidents in Tahrir

These are a small handful of examples to what happens to women in Egypt, on a daily basis.

And just last week, as we’re approaching the second anniversary to the Egyptian revolution, a women was raped at the Diabetes Institute while under anesthesia, and there were several other similar cases in the same institute.

Blog, tweet and post on Facebook for 48 hours and before we hit Tahrir Square on Jan 25 to face and fight organized mob sexual assault and harassment. The hashtag will be announced at the beginning of day one, stay posted.
تخيل/ي مصر من غير تحرش

بعد سنتين من ثورة ٢٥ يناير خلينا نفتكر ال ١٨ يوم في الميدان

فاكرين الإحساس بالأمان والكرامة

قارن/ي ده بالنهاردة والتحرش والعنف اللي لسه موجودين في كل مكان

– ٢٠٠٥ الأربعاء الأسود التحرش بالصحفيات
– ٢٠٠٦ التحرش الجماعي في وسط البلد في العيد اللي بقى بيحصل كل عيد من ساعتها
– ٢٠١١ الاعتداء المعروف بـ “كشوف العذرية”
– ٢٠١٢ إيمان شهيدة التحرش
– التحرشات والإغتصابات الجماعية في الميدان واللي حصلوا اكتر من مرة

ده غير التحرش الفردي واليومي اللي بتواجه النساء في مصر كل يوم وكل لحظة وفكل مكان

ومش بس كده، ده قبل أسبوع من الذكرى التانية للثورة نساء يتم إغتصابهن في معهد السكر وهم تحت تأثير التخدير

مش هنسكت

زقزق/ي ودون/ي واحكي على الفيسبوك لمدة ٤٨ ساعة، يومين من الصوت العالي ضد التحرش، وقبل ما ننزل الشارع كلنا يوم ٢٥ في الميدان نواجه اعتداءات التحرش
المنظمة! شاركونا!

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One Year Later: Honor “The Girl with the Blue Bra” and Others Like Her

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From our friends at the Egypt-based group HarassMap:

“A year has passed since Egyptian army soldiers stripped a female protester in Tahrir Square, beat her, and stomped on her half-naked body with their boots. The image circulated worldwide and the girl with the blue bra – whose identity remained unknown, but who in Egypt was dubbed ‘Sitt el Banat’ (‘A Woman Among Girls’) – became a symbol for all the other female protesters who took to the streets during this time and were met with assault, beatings, arbitrary detentions, verbal abuse, rape threats, and more.

We would like to commemorate this time, not just for the horrors it contained, but for the strength, dignity, and defiance of Sitt el Banat and the thousands of other women who still face a campaign to deter women from political participation — and who continue, despite threats to their safety and well-being, to take to the streets to fight for what they believe in.

What would you like to say to Sitt el Banat and others like her?

Please send us your own letters/messages to them on facebook, or twitter @harassmap or email at info@harassmap.org”

After someone asked what happened to the woman, a SSH Facebook member wrote:

“She is alive and she is now advocate for women rights! this is a link for her testimony http://youtu.be/QxoZoQqTRQg (Arabic) She is activist and member in 6th October political movement.”

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More sexual assaults at Tahrir Square in Egypt

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Trigger Warning – descriptions of sexual assaults

When I hopped on twitter this morning and checked the thread #EndSH, I was appalled to read that more sexual assaults took place last night against women at Tahrir Square in Egypt as they marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 25 revolution of 2011.

When will the assaults on women protesting and covering stories at Tahrir end?!

I clicked on a link to read about what happened. Here is part of an article I read on Bikya Masr. I am outraged:

“CAIRO: Heather still doesn’t know how she made it home on Wednesday night after being in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. The Arab-American arrived back at her Cairo flat without pants, having had them torn off downtown. She and her two roommates were victims of a mob attack by people in the iconic square on Wednesday, as protesters demonstrated against the military junta.

According to Heather, an Arab-American living in the Egyptian capital, she and her Swedish and Spanish roommates took to Tahrir as thousands were converging there to mark one-year since the ousting of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“They started fighting over who was going to do what,” Heather told Bikyamasr.com in an exclusive interview. She came forward after seeing the report on a foreign woman who was stripped naked and assaulted only hours after her own incident.

“My roommates and I fell to the ground when they attacked us. The people pulled our pants off even as we yelled and tried to fight,” she continued.

The incident occurred around 7:30 PM local time, just as night was taking hold of the city. Heather said the attack happened “in the center of Tahrir.”

She said that after the men pulled their pants off, they continued to grab and grobe the women’s bodies. “It is disgusting. They put fingers up my ass,” she revealed.

Luckily, the women were somehow pulled from the violence by a man and a woman and taken to safety. She said she doesn’t recall exactly how she was saved from the violent attack.

“I was shaking and crying and the man and woman just grabbed us and pulled us out and took us out of the square.”

Later in the night, the issue of sexual violence toward women was sparked after an eyewitness reported on the micro-blogging site Twitter that a foreign woman was stripped, groped and assaulted by another mob of men in the square.

The woman, who’s identity has not been revealed, was taken away in an ambulance after being assaulted for 10 minutes. Her husband reportedly was unable to intervene and witnessed the incident.

“I saw the woman and then dozens of men surrounded her and started grabbing her, when she screamed for help some people came, but they were hit in the face,” wrote one witness.

What happened next was “appalling,” said the trusted witness, who asked for anonymity. “The men just started tearing at her clothes and grabbing her body all over. When she fought back, they pushed her. It was chaos.”

There were unconfirmed reports that the men “violated” her with their hands.

The nationality of the woman is unknown at the current time.

Throughout the day, sexual harassment towards women has been increasing and more and more reports of women being grabbed and groped began being reported.

Activists called the attacks on women completely “unacceptable” and must be exposed no matter what. They demanded an end to all violence toward women.

“What happened in Tahrir today has no justification and must be fully exposed even if it taints Tahrir!” wrote EgyptSecularist on Twitter.

Heather said that she came forward to talk about what happened to her “because people need to know what goes on. It is the only way to start making it a problem that will have to be dealt with.”

However, many people told her to not reveal what happened to her because she was told, “it would hurt the image of the revolution.” But Heather said after seeing the reports of others and their assaults, “I felt it was right to say something.”

The incident brings memories of reporter Lara Logan, who was sexually assaulted the night former President Hosni Mubarak gave up power.

A mob of men ripped the 40-year-old correspondent away from her crew and bodyguard, tearing at her clothes and beating her in broad daylight….

Instances of sexual assaults on female journalists covering the events in Tahrir Square have continued in the year since Mubarak’s ouster.

According to studies conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Right (ECWR) in 2008, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women surveyed had experienced sexual harassment in Egypt.

Meanwhile, 62 percent of Egyptian men confessed to harassing women and 53 percent of Egyptian men faulted women for “bringing it on.”

What can we do? Help support HarassMap, one of the groups in Egypt working to combat the culture of harassment and assault on women in public places.

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Sexual Harassment in Tahrir: “Let’s keep the square safe for the women of the revolution”

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Street harassment and sexual assault are in full force at Tahrir Square in Egypt as tens of thousands of Egyptians rally and call for military rule to end before parliamentary elections are held. Here is a disturbing account of it, via Storyful.

“An increasing number of women have become victims of sexual harassment and assault at protests in Egypt over recent weeks. While some claim the attacks have been organised by the military and police to intimidate female protesters, others blame it on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. International female reporters have also been among those targeted, with French correspondent Caroline Sinz assaulted for 45 minutes in Tahrir Square by youths on November 24. One website has started mapping reports of sexual harassment around Cairo and is calling for women to step forward and tell their story.

The events of recent days, in which both activist and journalist Mona El-Tahawy and Sinz were sexually assaulted, have prompted women to speak out about endemic sexual harassment in Egypt….

On Thursday Sinz and her cameraman were reportedly mobbed by youths, as they walked down Mohammed Mahmoud street. They were dragged to Tahrir Square, where they were separated, and she was assaulted. Afterwards Sinz recalled: “Some people tried to help me but failed. I was lynched. It lasted three quarters of an hour before I was taken out. I thought I was going to die.”…

The feminist activist, journalist and blogger El-Tahawy claimed she was beaten and sexually assaulted by police officers on Thursday, after she was arrested on Tahrir Square. After her release she tweeted details of her assault on Twitter: @monaeltahawy 5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers.”

If you’re in Tahrir, this is for you:

@sallyzohney All females in #tahrir, pls share with me ANY harassment or assault, I am doing a report on this! very important!!

No matter where you are, here is an important article by @Rouelshimi about the current state of street harassment/sexual harassment in Tahrir Square and why this is NOT okay.  An excerpt:

“In Egypt, sexual harassment has been an issue for quite sometime. Women can’t walk down the street without being harassed whether verbally, physically or just by inappropriate looks….

So yes it has been a problem. Today though, was out of the ordinary; even for a huge Friday protest. More than one girl I’ve spoken to personally today has had horrible (and multiple) sexual harassment experiences. Not to mention the amount of complaints on twitter just from today. Personally, I had a very negative experience with harassment today with much groping and verbal abuse.

So this got me thinking; why today? The square is different this time around. There is much more tension in the air. Sadness over the lost and injured. Giving food and supplies became more of a business; even if there is still a big dependence on donations and sharing. Anger from SCAF’s brutality. All of this with hope and faith in a bright future.

So why today? Today, there was also a pro-scaf rally in Abbasiya square reported at about 15,000 people participating. There was also a ceasefire with the police, after the army built a concrete wall (oh the irony!) between the protesters and the police following 5 days of fighting and breaking of ceasefires from both sides. Today was also the day that had the most sexual harassment. It got so far that Media rights group Reporters Without Borders advised media outlets to stop sending female reporters to Tahrir Square, in light of continued reports of sexual violence against female reporters covering unrest in the square.

And why are there so many cases with this intensity today? Is it because of the amount of people there? Or maybe even army or police insiders in the square trying to make women uncomfortable? Is it because it was full of people who were not there for the protests, but are just going to Tahrir because its cool? I’m not sure. But something definitely was up and we need to fight it.

If women are being chased away from the square after terrible experiences, and if fathers and husbands start making their daughters and wives stop going, it weakens us. It weakens our revolution and our cause. Stand up for sexual harassment, whether you are male or female. Don’t let it go unnoticed. Whether you are male or female. Speak up to it, make a scene. Lets deal with this whether through street justice or organised awareness and policing. Let’s keep the square safe for the women of the revolution.”

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