prey walking in street.(sexual harassment in Egypt)

I still remember the tears falling from my cousin eyes when she told me how little boys have touched her body strongly while she was walking in dark street she was only 11years old . I remember how it frightened me that I didn’t get out alone without my father.it was sience 12 years

Sexual harassment spreader in Egypt since 2003 and as there was no one fight it even women feel shame to say that she harassed  its increased gradually to reach its peak at 2011.

 Now days .Sexual harassment has scary violent face as since 6 months  huge group of youth stripped lady clothing in Tahrir square and harassed her , lady was rescued hardly and entered hospital in horrible case there were several wounds in her body and vaginal bleeding.

Although there are many Egyptian non- governmental organizations fight sexual harassment like (shoft Tahrosh) , (catch harasser) and (harassment map) it hasn’t real influence as Egyptian police didn’t consider sexual harassment a real crime although Egyptian law have increased its penalty to Life imprison.

The problem is very huge and it seemed to be clueless as little child consider that sexual harassment is sort of having fun and youth justify it aas women be happy when she is harassed and the  victim keep silence as the society always think that she is wrong she wore sexy cloths although most of Egyptian women wear veil.

The only way to stop this horrible phenomenon will be by learning child to respect woman and achieve huge ethics development and making groups of volunteers resist sexual harassment with learning women self defense and increasing role of anti- sexual harassment organizations.

By / Aya A. Alashuah

Email: ayaashuah@yahoo.com

Sexual harassment in Tahrir square

Women against Women

By / Aya A. Elashuah

Thanks to Jihad Ibrahim

 (Egyptian  woman in political life)

“She must be unemployed! Loser woman!”

It was a conversation between two young girls when they saw a picture of woman who is a candidate for Egyptian parliament.

Sadly, in Egypt, not only men think that woman not qualified for political life but women, too. According to the latest poll, most women won’t elect female candidates for presidency. Although we are in 21^st Century, Egyptians still think that the major role of women is only in her home, to raise her kids and that she is not efficient enough to participate in the political life, or be the president or the prime minister

Sadly, the majority female participation in the Egyptian parliament was in 2010 as the government determined a number of seats for women, but unfortunately, this parliament only lasted for two months because of the Egyptian revolution.

I don’t care about men who think that women don’t have enough efficiency for political position but  what make me feel disappoint the situation of women against her sex I didn’t talk about women rights but I want woman think about  herself with a different way! As you are successful at your home and in your job you can be successful too in political life! You are totally different from men in way that if it well used will be benefit you, your society and humanity. So when you be leader you will make real change that no one can do. God will make you change this miserable world.

Finally, I want to tell Arabian women: if you don’t believe that women are good enough for a political life, don’t support women anyway,  don’t despise or fight her.

            

          

[headlines] UN encourages review of Egypt's draft Constitution to ensure conformity with its obligations under international law on equality and women's human rights

United Nations Press release
GENEVA (14 December 2012) – The United Nations Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice expressed deep concern regarding equality, non-discrimination and protection and promotion of women’s human rights in the final draft of the new Constitution which was approved by the Constituent Assembly on 30 November.

It calls upon the Egyptian Government to abide by commitments made through the ratification of international instruments to which it is a party, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which obligate States’ parties to ensure that the Constitution and other legislation are compatible with the principle of non-discrimination against women, and equality of women with men.

“Key opportunities have so far been missed,” stressed independent expert Kamala Chandrakirana, who currently heads the UN expert body charged with identifying ways to eliminate laws and practices that discriminate against women, and making recommendations on implementation of the law and empowerment of women. “We are concerned that almost no women were represented in the Constituent Assembly charged with drafting the new Constitution and that women’s perspectives were grossly under-represented in the final draft.”

“Political transitions offer a unique opportunity to address inequalities of the past, advance women’s human rights and ensure that equality between women and men is one of the foundations on which the new legal system is built as indeed we emphasized in our report to the HRC in 2012*”. However, she said, “despite offering unprecedented opportunities for progress, political transitions can result in regression and bring new forms of discrimination.”

The UN expert group has been closely following unfolding events in Egypt and takes note of the planned referendum on 15 December. It is of the view that critical review of the draft Constitution is still necessary.

While the Working Group welcomes a number of positive provisions on human rights in the draft Constitution, including free maternal and health services, it draws attention to issues relating to equality for women that need to be brought in line with international human rights standards.

The experts acknowledge that the final draft Constitution includes in its preamble a general principle which provides that “equality and equal opportunities are established for all citizens, men and women, without discrimination or nepotism or preferential treatment, in both rights and duties”. It also provides “that all citizens are equal before the law and have equal public rights and duties without discrimination”.

However, crucially, it does not include in its substantive provisions the guarantee of non-discrimination based on sex necessary to give effect to the principle of equality between men and women in the preamble and in accordance with Egypt’s international human rights obligations. Furthermore, the Working Group notes that the implementation of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality of women in subsequent legislation might be obstructed by the formulation in the preamble.

According to article 2, Islam is the religion of the State and the principles of Islamic Sharia are the principal source of legislation. Although article 6 espouses democratic principles, including citizenship on an equal basis, political pluralism, separation of powers, and the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and freedoms, the experts expressed concern about the absence of a provision incorporating international law, including on women’s human right to equality, into the domestic legal order and stipulating its primacy.

“Treaty bodies regularly recommend that States guarantee women’s human rights in the national Constitution and thus ensure that they prevail over inconsistent laws of lesser status” Ms. Chandrakirana said.

Article 2 provides that Islam will be the principle source of legislation and article 3 provides that Egyptian Christians and Jews personal status will be regulated under their religious laws. However, there is no provision that women’s right to equality in the family will be respected, protected and fulfilled by the State in accordance with international human rights standards. In addition, article 10 provides that “the family is the basis of the society and is founded on religion, morality and patriotism. The State is keen to preserve the genuine character of the Egyptian family, its cohesion and stability, and to protect its moral values, all as regulated by law.”

Over the last 30 years, human rights mechanisms have emphasized that violations of women’s right to equality cannot be justified by reliance on religious or cultural tradition. The experts also noted the absence of protection for women of diverse beliefs and opinions, religious or other, against any form of discrimination and exclusion.

The Working Group notes that article 4 extends the powers of the independent Islamic institution Al-Azhar, stating that “Al-Azhar Senior Scholars are to be consulted in matters pertaining to Islamic law,” which puts it effectively in charge of interpreting all Sharia-related matters. The experts urged the Egyptian authorities to clarify that measures will be taken to ensure that interpretations provided by this body to the executive, legislature and judiciary will be brought into line with the legally binding international instruments Egypt has ratified, including on women’s human rights.

“We would also like clarification on how the independence of the judiciary, and in particular of the Supreme Constitutional Court, an independent judicial body provided for by article 175 to exclusively exercise judicial control of the constitutionality of laws and regulations, will be guaranteed, as well as women’s equal representation in the Supreme Constitutional Court.”

“We urge the Egyptian Government to ensure women’s full and equal participation in all processes related to the political transition, to guarantee their freedom to express their views, to be protected against violence in their political and public activities and have their voices incorporated in public discourse and in shaping the society. Further, the Government should ensure that the Constitution provides the strongest guarantees to advance equality and women’s human rights in line with Egypt’s obligations under international law,” Ms. Chandrakirana underscored.

[headlines] Egypt: Pillay alarmed by violence and by 'major problems' with draft Constitution

GENEVA (7 December 2012) -- The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed alarm Friday at the rising tension and recent deaths and injuries during protests related to Egypt’s draft Constitution, while also drawing attention to a number of major problems with the text which is due to be put to referendum on 15 December.

Pillay welcomed President Morsi’s call for dialogue on Thursday but regretted there was no significant progress on the core issues relating to the Constitution.

The High Commissioner raised serious concerns about the process leading up to the referendum, and said her Office had been carefully analysing the contents of the draft Constitution, as well as monitoring the Constitution-drafting process.

“The lack of inclusive participation of various actors in Egypt in the constitution-drafting process is a matter of major concern, and one of the main reasons for the disastrous situation that has been developing in Egypt over the past couple of weeks,” Pillay said. “This is the last thing Egypt needs during such a difficult period of transition, but I believe people are right to be very concerned -- not just about the way the process has been short-circuited, but also about some of the elements included in, or missing from, the draft text.”

The High Commissioner noted that the draft Constitution contained some important positive elements, including for example the limitation of the presidency to two four-year terms and the inclusion of the right to establish associations and civil institutions.

“The draft constitution provides guarantees to some human rights,” Pillay said. “However, there are also some very worrying omissions and ambiguities, and in some areas the protections in it are even weaker than the 1971 Constitution it is supposed to replace. I am highly concerned, for example, by the absence in the current draft of any reference to the international human rights treaties which Egypt has ratified, and is bound to uphold. The 1971 Constitution, by contrast, stipulated the legal standing of these treaties.” *

“I also regret that the draft constitution, in many of its provisions, refers to legislation currently in force in the country which may already be at odds with international human rights norms. I believe that the applicability of international law over national law should be clearly stated in the national Constitution, in order to prevent subsequent or existing national laws undermining or conflicting with international law,” Pillay said.

While noting that the draft constitution guarantees equality before the law in rights and duties with no discrimination, the High Commissioner noted that "it does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender, sex, religion and origin," while maintaining the language in the 1971 Constitution concerning Sharia Law as the primary source of legislation and jurisprudence.

“The draft constitution guarantees the freedom of faith, but only mentions the three monotheistic religions, raising concern for all other religious groups including resident minorities such as the Baha'i community,” Pillay said. “This makes it less inclusive than the 1971 Constitution, and opens the door to breaches of Egypt’s obligation under international law to honour everyone’s right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

While the freedom of press is guaranteed to an extent, limitations include respect of private life and national security. Censorship of the press is forbidden, except in times of war and when armed forces are mobilized. However, the role of the National Council of the Media in regulating the profession could be very problematic, the High Commissioner said.

“I am also preoccupied by Article 198, which prohibits the trial of civilians before military courts, but provides for an exception in relation to crimes committed against armed forces as defined by law. This Article appears to be in contradiction with international standards due to the wide interpretation of crimes under which civilians could be tried by military courts in existing legislation,” Pillay said.

“Article 232 of the draft text purports to constitutionalise a law that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Constitutional Court, which is extremely unfortunate,” she added. “This article, which calls for leaders of the defunct National Democratic Party to be banned for 10 years, leads to the exclusion of far too broad a range of people from their political rights. A process of transitional justice, including the vetting of past senior officials, is needed to ensure they have not been involved in human rights violations. However, a ban without any such a process could lead to Egypt being deprived of the services of some very experienced politicians and administrators who are not suspected of any serious crime or misdemeanour that would warrant their exclusion from participating in public life,” she added.

Pillay also expressed concern about the absence of any explicit guarantee of the independence and mandate of the National Human Rights Institution in Egypt in line with the international set of standards known as the Paris Principles.

“For human rights to have meaning in any society, they must be guaranteed by law and enforced by independent courts,” the High Commissioner said, pointing to concerns regarding article 176 of the draft constitution. “This provision also marks a serious step backwards from the 1971 constitution, which stated that judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court cannot be removed from their positions,” she said. “The draft constitution provides for the direct appointment of judges to the Supreme Constitutional Court by the President, which risks giving the Executive excessive power over the judiciary. This concentration of power in the hands of the President -- like the provisions of the President’s Constitutional Declaration -- undermines the independence of the judiciary.”

“The haste with which the Constituent Assembly adopted the final text for Presidential action, and many of the surrounding circumstances, have put into question the credibility of the process, and contributed to the chaos in Cairo and other cities,” Pillay said. “Urgent steps are needed to restore confidence in the process, and in the country’s all-important new Constitution, on which so much depends.”
United Nations Press release

Whitewash in Virginity Tests Trial, says Human Rights Watch

(New York) April 7, 2012 – The March 11 acquittal of the only military officer charged in the “virginity tests” trial is a blow for any hopes of accountability for the abuses women have experienced at the hands of the Egyptian military over the past year, Human Rights Watch said today. The military has failed to investigate and punish credible claims of other instances of violence by its members against women, including the beating and torture of women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16, 2011.

The investigation and trial in the case, in which female protesters who had been detained testified that a military doctor subjected them to “virginity testing,” underscore the lack of independence of the military justice system in trying such cases, Human Rights Watch said. The military prosecutor summoned no witnesses for the prosecution to establish the charges under which he had referred the case to court, nor did he challenge apparently factually inconsistent testimony by defense witnesses. Despite clear statements from senior military leaders that the incident had taken place, the trial did not examine who, and at what rank, ordered the tests.

“The verdict in the ’virginity tests’ trial is just one more example of the military’s failure to punish gross abuses against women and a reminder that the military justice system lacks the fundamental independence to remedy human rights abuses by the military,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

On the afternoon of March 9, 2011, military officers destroyed a tent camp belonging to demonstrators in Tahrir Square's central garden, and arrested at least 190 demonstrators. On March 10, according to five women who gave accounts of their experiences, a military officer went into the prison cell where 17 women were being held and asked if they were married. A prison military doctor, Ahmed Adel, then conducted “virginity tests” on seven of the women who said they were not, using his fingers to examine their hymens.

Three of the women, Samira Ibrahim, Rasha Abdel Rahman, and Salwa al Hosseiny, told Human Rights Watch that a female prison warden and other soldiers were present in the corridor when the doctor conducted the “virginity tests.” Later that day, after trials lasting not more than 30 minutes, a military court sentenced all 17 of the women to suspended one-year sentences for “thuggery.” The military officers released them on March 12.

It took nine months, however, for military prosecutors to refer the case on the allegations of virginity testing to court. The only military officer charged and brought to trial was Adel, who was charged with “public indecency” and “failure to obey orders.” He was acquitted on all charges on March 11, 2012. Even though both Ibrahim and Abdel Rahman testified in court that Adel had subjected them to virginity tests, the court based its decision on the doctor’s denial and the inconsistent testimonies of two prison wardens. The military prosecutor failed to challenge the inconsistencies or to investigate anyone in the command chain who may or should have known that the tests took place and did not prevent them.

Ibrahim’s lawyer, Ahmad Hossam, told Human Rights Watch that the prosecutor also failed to summon a single witness to prove the charges he set out in his indictment referring the case to court, and that Abdel Rahman and three other witnesses for the prosecution were able to testify only by petitioning the judge. Ibrahim had testified in her capacity as the plaintiff since the case had started as a result of the complaint she had filed.

Although they initially denied that any violations had taken place in March 2011, generals of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) later confirmed on at least two occasions that the virginity tests had taken place on March 10 and that this was a routine practice. In an interview with Shahira Amin, a journalist, on May 27, General Ismail Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military, said that, “We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.”

On June 13, Mona Saif, founder of the No to Military Trials group, met with SCAF General Hassan al-Ruweiny, who gave her the same explanation. On June 26 Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, confirmed to Amnesty International that the military had carried out the tests, as the organization published in a statement the next day. In addition, General Mohamed ‘Assar told Human Rights Watch on June 7 that conducting virginity tests was “normal practice” and that, “When any woman enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that she be subjected to a virginity test.”

The flawed investigation and trial of this case reflects the lack of the military prosecutor’s and military court’s independence, Human Rights Watch said. The military justice system in Egypt is a division of the Defense Ministry. The head of military justice, General Adel Morsy, reports to the SCAF and appoints all the military judges by authority vested in him by a SCAF decree.

In December Morsy said that there “was no decision in the first place to conduct virginity tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations of military prisons.” Given his status in the military hierarchy and his authority over the military judge in the trial, such a statement effectively prejudged certain aspects of the trial, precluding an examination of whether the military ordered the virginity tests or had a policy of carrying them out, Human Rights Watch said.

“Civilian courts, not military courts, should be in charge of prosecuting the military for their ongoing abuses against civilians,” Whitson said.

The acquittal of the military doctor reflects an ongoing pattern of the military’s failure to investigate and prosecute cases involving military violence against women. The military has not seriously investigated allegations of assault on women demonstrators on March 9, 2011, or incidents in which video footage captured groups of military police beating and kicking women on December 16, including one veiled woman who lay on the ground with her torso exposed while six military police officers beat and kicked her.

On December 19 General Adel Emara commented on the attack on the veiled woman, telling journalists: “Yes this scene actually happened and we are investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in full. We do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not taken the testimony of any of the women assaulted in these cases, human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch, nor made public any of the results of their alleged investigations. An investigation into the incident by civilian prosecutors also has failed to interrogate any military officers, human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

Despite the fact that military courts have issued harsh sentences, including many death sentences, in cases of rape by civilians, there appears to be a significant discrepancy in sentencing when a military officer is tried for the same crime. Human Rights Watch has been able to identify only one case in which a civilian allegedly raped by a military officer filed a criminal complaint that went to trial: the case of a 34-year-old British woman who said she was raped in a room at a checkpoint in Sinai on May 15, 2011. The military court sentenced the officer to five years in prison, which it commuted to three years in February.

Proposals to amend the Code of Military Justice should not only prohibit trying civilians before military courts but also allow for trials of military officers before civilian courts in cases of serious human rights violations.

“The military has chosen to cover up the ‘virginity tests’ just as it has failed to investigate or prosecute anyone for serious allegations about the beating of women protesters in December,” Whitson said. “Military impunity will continue as long as the military justice system is the only place victims of military abuse can file complaints.”

The Virginity Tests Trial

Failure to Investigate and Prosecute Adequately

Human rights lawyers representing Samira Ibrahim filed a complaint on June 23 at the office of the military prosecutor. The deputy chief military prosecutor summoned Ibrahim on June 28 to take her testimony. On July 10 the prosecutor summoned Adel, a 27-year-old first lieutenant and the military doctor on duty at the military prison at the time of the tests, who denied that the invasive procedure had taken place.

Ahmed Hossam, Ibrahim’s lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that over the following eight months whenever he asked about the progress of the investigation, military prosecutors told him that the results of the investigation by the military police at the prison “weren’t ready yet.” In contrast, investigations by military prosecutors of civilians can last as little as 30 minutes, and in high-profile cases three weeks, before the prosecutor refers the case to court.

It was not until December 20 that Morsy announced in a news release that the virginity tests case had been referred to trial before military courts. The prosecutor’s referral order is dated December 18. It came after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in November calling for an immediate end to military rule, and further protests on December 16, when military police were caught on video beating unarmed protesters, including several women.

Charges and Indictment

Case documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that the military prosecutor limited his investigation to interrogating Adel and did not investigate the potential responsibility of commanders for ordering procedures or indict any of the commanding officers who oversaw the arrest, detention, and trial of the 174 protesters and the detention of the 17 women in the military prison. He indicted only the prison doctor and added a second charge of “failing to obey orders” to indicate that this was an isolated act that the doctor had initiated independently.

Lawyers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) obtained the prosecutor’s interrogation and indictment sheets. These reports indicate that on December 13 the military prosecutor interrogated Adel and charged him with “sexual assault” [hatk‘ard] and on December 18 issued a charge sheet accusing Adel of “violating the victim Samira Ibrahim by exceeding the bounds of a medical examination and subjecting her to a virginity test and revealing her area of chastity.” [manatiq al‘iffa].On the interrogation sheet, the prosecutor stated that Adel had subjected Ibrahim to the test in full view of other people in the military prison.

Yet in the December 18 referral order, the prosecutor had reduced the charges from sexual assault to committing “an act of public indecency” and “failure to obey orders.” Hossam told Human Rights Watch that he and other lawyers had on four occasions asked the judge to amend the charges from “act of public indecency” and “failure to follow orders” to “sexual assault” (hatk‘ard). The SCAF had in March 2011 amended article 268 of the Egyptian penal code on sexual assault, increasing the penalty from hard labor to imprisonment of up to seven years and stating that “any person who violates another with the use of force or threat, or attempts to do so, shall be punished with imprisonment.” The judge refused to restore the sexual assault charge.

Witnesses and Evidence

At the trial, two women testified that Adel had subjected them to the tests and two others that SCAF generals had confirmed the incident to them.

At least four witnesses summoned by defense lawyers who said they were in the military prison that day supported the military doctor’s testimony that the tests had not taken place. They included the head of the military prison, Major Ashraf Sayed Mohamed, and the two female prison wardens, Fawziya Sobhi Hassan and Abeer Rashad Abdel Moemen. However, Abdel Moemen testified that she had not been present during the military doctor’s examination of the women, contradicting her June 9 testimony to the military prosecutor that she had been with the doctor at the time of the examination and was the only one present.

Hassan also had told the prosecutor on December 19 that she had been present during the examinations with Abdel Moemen, but on February 6 testified in court that Hassan had been the only one with the doctor. The prosecutor did not raise the issue of the inconsistent testimony during the trial nor did he cross-examine the witnesses.

Since the Code of Military Justice does not recognize the standing of the civil parties to the case, Ibrahim’s lawyers, Ahmed Hossam and Adel Ramadan, only managed to get access to the case file and permission to intervene in the case after appealing to Morsy on January 3. The lawyers contended they had a right to intervene in the proceedings on the basis of article 272 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows victims the right to cross-examine witnesses. Morsy allowed them to appear as lawyers for the victim to intervene in the case, but did not allow them to file compensation claims. Morsy told Hossam that he had issued orders to allow lawyers for civilian claimants to intervene in all military trials.

Hossam and Ramadan next asked the judge to summon witnesses for the prosecution, since the military prosecutor had not summoned a single witness to establish the charges. The judge approved this request, and the lawyers brought forward four witnesses to testify on February 26.

One of the four was Rasha Abdel Rahman, who confirmed Ibrahim’s testimony. She told Human Rights Watch that when she saw him in court on February 26 she recognized the accused as the one who had subjected her to the virginity test. She told Human Rights Watch:

There was a prison warden called Azza dressed in black. I was the fifth one to be examined. They took me to a bed in the passageway. There were others there: the prison doctor, a soldier called Ibrahim, Azza the prison warden, and a man standing in the room opposite. The doctor examined me with his hand.

Cover-up, Despite the Military Leadership’s Admission

In the first three months after the incident, members of the SCAF had repeatedly denied that the virginity tests took place, including in the above statements by Generals Mohammed ‘Assar and Ismail Etman.

However, in the trial session on February 26, Shahira Amin, the journalist, testified that SCAF members had confirmed to her that the incident had taken place. In addition, Mona Saif, founder of the No To Military Trials group, testified that when their group had raised the incident in a meeting with a SCAF general, he had told them that “virginity tests” were a routine practice. Heba Morayef from Human Rights Watch also testified that a SCAF member had told her that virginity tests were a normal practice and that they were regularly conducted on all women prisoners.

Amin recounted what General Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military, told her in a telephone conversation on May 27 as she was interviewing him for a story for CNN:

The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)…. We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.

Saif testified that General Hassan al-Ruweiny had told her on June 13 that the tests were a routine procedure on women detainees in military prisons conducted to prevent future claims of sexual assault.

Morayef testified that she was part of a Human Rights Watch delegation who had met with Major General ‘Assar on June 7, who told the delegation:

You have to take into account the differences in culture around the world. There are Asian countries where you are offered the brain of a monkey as a guest. There are differences in cultures… When any woman enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that she be subjected to a virginity test… We have issued instructions that this should not take place again.

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui at Amnesty International also told Human Rights Watch that when their delegation met Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, on June 26, he confirmed to them that the military had carried out the tests in order to protect the military against possible allegations of rape.

Civilian Administrative Court Orders an End to Virginity Tests

Egyptian human rights lawyers had filed a separate case before an administrative court, asking the court to order an end to virginity tests in military prisons as a violation of human rights.

On December 27 Egypt’s administrative court, the Council of State, ruled in Samira Ibrahim’s favor in the case. Citing Egypt’s Code of Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Declaration, and Egypt’s ratification of treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, presiding judge Abdel Salam al-Naggar ruled that the practice of conducting virginity tests on women in detention was “targeted at humiliating women participating in demonstrations” and that they were “an illegal act and a violation of women’s rights and an assault on their dignity.” Judges in administrative courts can issue findings of law based on prima facie findings of an alleged practice when they rule a case admissible but do not make findings about specific criminal incidents.

The judge cited article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that every detainee must be treated with respect for human dignity and prohibits physical or psychological ill-treatment, and article 46, which states that women can only be searched with their consent. The judge also cited that articles 8, 9, and 17 of the Constitutional Declaration guarantee the right of people in detention to be treated with dignity, not to be subjected to any physical or psychological harm, and not to be detained in places other than those specified in the prisons law. He said that any violation of these rights is a crime and that the state is under an obligation to provide a just remedy to those whose rights have been violated.

Later that day, Morsy issued a news release in which he said that the decision of the administrative court was not applicable because there “was no decision in the first place to conduct virginity tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations of military prisons.” He said that if these tests were to take place, they would be the act of an individual, who should be punished.

The SCAF has in the past implemented court rulings by Egypt’s administrative courts, such as the Council of State judgment ordering Egypt’s executive authorities to enable Egyptians living outside Egypt to vote in the country’s November parliamentary elections.

Virginity Tests Under International Law

As party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Egypt is obliged to protect women from cruel and inhuman treatment and discrimination, and to ensure their right to privacy. Coercive virginity tests violate all three of those obligations, Human Rights Watch said.

The virginity tests also violate guarantees of freedom from discrimination in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is reflected in the March 30 Constitutional Declaration that acts as Egypt’s transitional constitution. The CEDAW Committee has previously stated that it views with the “gravest concern the practice of forced gynecological examinations of women … including of women prisoners while in custody.” The committee “emphasized that such coercive practices were degrading, discriminatory and unsafe and constituted a violation by state authorities of the bodily integrity, person and dignity of women.”

Conducting virginity tests without the informed consent of the girl or woman violates her right to bodily integrity, dignity, privacy, and equality before the law, and would amount to a sexual assault. Such assaults cannot be justified, being based on an intrinsically discriminatory presumption that an examination of female virginity can be a legitimate interest of the state. Under international law virginity tests committed in custody constitute cruel and inhuman treatment. These exams are painful, degrading, and frightening. Victims attest that being forced to undress and undergo exams is degrading both as a physical violation and for the threatened consequences, given their status as prisoners.

Impunity for Violence Against Women Demonstrators

In addition to the “virginity tests” case, the Egyptian military has failed to punish other violence against women demonstrators. The military has not investigated or punished the beating and torture of women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16, despite promises to do so.

Human Rights Watch has interviewed 16 men and women who testified to being tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military officers on March 9 in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum, adjacent to Tahrir Square. Rasha Azab, a 28-year-old journalist for Al-Fajr Weekly, told Human Rights Watch she was handcuffed to an outside wall in a museum courtyard:

They were kicking me in my stomach, hitting me with wooden sticks and slapping my face. They called me dirty names. At one point, one of them came and tied my hands even more tightly. I stood there for four hours. I saw dozens of men being dragged on the floor and whipped. All of them were the people who had stayed in the square. I heard people screaming from inside the museum, and said, “You should thank God you are not inside.”

On March 28 SCAF Statement No. 29 on the military’s official Facebook page said the military would “look into the truth of what was said recently” about “the torture of women arrested during the latest sit-in in Tahrir by military officers.”

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights obtained an April 2011 military police report signed by General Hamdi Badeen, head of the military police, titled “on the March 9 arrest of demonstrations from Tahrir square” and marked “very secret.” The document states that:

During the filming of the detainees it was noted that there were bruises and abrasions on some of the men and women and they said that some of those inside the museum … and some members of the armed forces … who were inside the museum attacked them, which is what led to these bruises.

Despite this report, however, there has been no investigation by the military prosecutors into the torture of the women and men. Only the military prosecutor can summon military officers to interrogate them on such charges, and thus far, the military prosecutors have not summoned any of the victims to take their testimonies, which is the first step in any investigation.

On December 16 security forces attacked and beat female and male demonstrators who had been protesting in front of the offices of the Egyptian cabinet. At least six military police officers were caught on camera apparently beating, stomping on, and kicking a veiled woman whose clothes had been torn off, exposing her torso. In other footage, at least four military police were seen beating and kicking another woman, Azza Helal, as she lay motionless on the street with sticks. Helal, who spent over a week in hospital with serious injuries, has filed a criminal complaint with the civilian public prosecution; the other woman, whose picture was splashed across the international media, has not come forward.

General Adel Emara confirmed that this incident had taken place and told journalists: “yes this scene actually happened, and we are investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in full. We do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not summoned the victims to testify or formally questioned any military officers in connection with a criminal investigation of this incident.

On December 20, while a women’s march of up to 10,000 people was winding through the streets of downtown Cairo, the SCAF posted a statement on its official Facebook page:

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its deep regret to the great women of Egypt for the infractions (tagawuzat) that occurred during the events of the Cabinet demonstrations, and affirms its respect and appreciation for the women of Egypt and their right to demonstrate and participate politically in Egypt … taking into account that all necessary legal measures have been taken to hold accountable those responsible for these infractions.

Despite this statement, there has been no “disclosure” by the military of the result of any investigation it may have conducted or whether it has ordered disciplinary measures short of a criminal investigation. The investigation into the violence during the December demonstrations at the offices of the cabinet, led by civilian prosecutors, has not included the military officers involved in the violence. Human rights lawyers Basma Zahran and Ahmad Hossam, who represent some of the women beaten and sexually abused, both confirmed to Human Rights Watch that civilian judicial authorities have not sought to identify which military officers may have been responsible for beating the women, for example by ordering a review of available video footage.

At least two of the women told the civilian investigative judge who was interrogating them in connection with the incident that they had been beaten and sexually abused by military officers. Had there been an intention to investigate, the investigative judge would have had to transfer the complaint to the military prosecution, since only the military prosecution can interrogate military officers as accused. The first step in any investigation would be for military prosecutors to summon victims in order to take their testimonies and this has yet to occur.

Discrepancy in Sentencing Civilians and Military in Cases of Rape

Human Rights Watch is aware of only one case in which a crime of rape committed by a military officer against a civilian was prosecuted and punished. The victim, a 34-year-old woman from the United Kingdom who did not wish to be identified, was in a shared taxi on May 14, 2011, in Sinai when military officers stopped the taxi at a checkpoint before al-Arish, told the woman to get out, and ordered the taxi to drive on. The woman told Human Rights Watch that the military officer had told her to go into the building at the checkpoint, where she would have to stay until morning, and that about 15 or 20 other soldiers were at the checkpoint. She said the officer led her up to a small room on the second floor. In a statement to Human Rights Watch, she wrote:

I became even more scared and stood up to leave, but he stood up and pushed me back. I knew that the other soldiers were just outside, so I screamed, “Help!”, as loudly as I could, but I think this would have only lasted for a second or two at most because he put his hand over my mouth. I struggled to get away but he was really strong. He tried to kiss me so he must have taken his hand off my mouth at some point.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of what happened next. I know that he pushed me onto the floor, because I remember being face down on the floor, twisted with my face against the wall, and him somehow on top of me. I was very scared, and shocked. He pulled my jeans down and I felt something go inside my vagina. His hand was over my face and at one point I managed to move my head so that I could say “I can’t breathe.” I thought that he might kill me at this point. I don’t remember it going in or out of me – I just remember the feeling of it inside me. I was surprised it happened so quickly. He made a noise; I think he had ejaculated.

On May 15 she reported the crime to the tourist police, who referred her to the military prosecution, where she filed a formal complaint. The woman described what happened at the military court building in Nasr City:

After a few hours of waiting I said that I wanted to go, but I was told we weren’t allowed to leave. I started asking for a lawyer because I wanted help … Once I started asking to leave, and asking for a lawyer, the military personnel present … started asking me if I was making it up, why was I changing my mind, and telling me I did not need a lawyer as I was not accused, I was the victim. I stood up to leave but the gate was blocked by army personnel holding guns. This was terrifying. I was extremely upset and kept asking to leave.

The military prosecutor eventually allowed her to leave that evening, telling her to return the following day. The next day, an officer in civilian clothes who identified himself as “detective Hani” asked her to do a “re-enactment” of the rape on the floor, showing the positions she had been in. The military officer then asked her to return the next day. When she arrived, military officials told her that they wanted her to identify her attacker from a line-up of five men, which she did.

It was only months later that her Egyptian lawyers to whom she had granted power of attorney managed to find out that an Ismailiya military court had convicted the officer of rape and sentenced him to five years in prison. However, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawy, the Defense Minister and head of the SCAF, ordered a retrial of the case, and on February 6, the court reduced the sentence to three years.

This sentence stands in marked contrast to the sentences issued by military tribunals against civilians convicted of rape, where sentences have ranged from 25 years to the death penalty. For example, in March 2011, an Ismailiya military court sentenced a 25-year-old civilian, Ismail Mohamed, to 20 years for attempted rape. On May 16 the Supreme Military Court convicted Mohamed Tarek, Karim El Sawy, Ahmed El Ashry, and Mahmoud Hassan of kidnapping and raping a woman and sentenced them to death.

Military Trials of Human Rights Abuses Lead to Impunity

The independence necessary to investigate and prosecute military abuses generally does not exist when military authorities investigate human rights violations by military personnel and prosecute them in military courts. Both the prosecution and judges should be independent of those they are investigating, including of the chain of command, Human Rights Watch said.

The Egyptian military justice system, created by Law 25 of 1966, includes courts and a prosecution section and is a division of the Defense Ministry. All military judges and prosecutors are serving members of the military, subject to the military hierarchy, selected by the head of the military justice system, and appointed by the defense minister. They have no formal independence and report to Morsy, the head of the military justice system, who reports to the defense minister, currently Tantawy, who as head of the SCAF is exercising presidential powers.

The 2005 United Nations Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity state that “the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be restricted solely to specifically military offenses committed by military personnel, to the exclusion of human rights violations, which shall come under the jurisdiction of the ordinary domestic courts.” The Inter-American system of human rights protection has opposed the use of military tribunals to try military personnel in cases of human rights violations.

In its long-term work in Mexico and Chile for example, Human Rights Watch has found that restricting jurisdiction over human rights abuses committed by military personnel to military tribunals will lead to impunity. A 2006 report by the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, held that after asserting jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute cases in which members of the military had raped women in southern Mexico, “rather than carrying out full and impartial investigations, military investigators have reportedly delayed criminal proceedings and tried to disprove the allegations thereby placing the burden of proof on the victim.”

In its report “The Road Ahead: A Human Rights Agenda for Egypt’s New Parliament,” Human Rights Watch identified the Code of Military Justice as one of the priorities for legislative reform to end trials of civilians before military courts and to allow civilian courts to try military officers for serious human rights abuses. It said:

The Egyptian parliament should amend the Code of Military Justice to restrict the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of only military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature; and
The Code of Military Justice should be amended to explicitly state that the public prosecutor shall be competent to investigate complaints regarding military abuse and that members of the military can be tried before civilian courts in cases of abuse and ill-treatment.

Human Rights Watch Press release

An Everyday Story

The alarm clock of the mobile rings, is it morning already, she wonders.

Seems so, although she doesn’t feel she rested enough, she seldom has enough sleep. She goes out of bed, walks barefoot to the kitchen. Passing by the apartment door she checked if the doorman’s wife had brought the bread, wondering all the time, what takes that woman all that time?

Preparing the breakfast she holds her to do list for today’s duties: she has to drive the boy to daycare, go for work, and attend a number of meetings after work, then pick her boy up from the daycare centre, go to the club for the boy’s training, get the groceries for the day, go to the doctor for the monthly checkup of the boy, visit her parents and get back home.

Heading to her boy’s room to wake him up, she stands at his door looking at him- it is a pity that he too never has enough sleep. He has to get up early no matter if it is school day or not. During the summer vacations, he has to go to the daycare to spend her working hours. She promised to take a week off so they can go together to a coastal city where they can have some fun and spend some time together, but her boss refused the idea of a whole week off. If she goes away on a holiday, she won’t be paid, and some of the salary will be cut, that she couldn’t afford.

She wakes up her boy and helps him dress. While having breakfast she keeps looking at him, he is the best thing that ever happened to her. Yes, he has some problems but he is still adorable, and she wondered to herself, how can’t other people see that?

He has autism, his case is to be handled and he still needs much care. The special daycare, the doctor and even the sports at club were all part of trials to merge him with other kids.

She dresses herself up, wears her makeup, and starts to get down the stairs. She meets her nice neighbors from the third floor going down the stairs- which means that the elevator is not fixed. She thanks God she is in the first floor, with the high heels she wears she couldn’t imagine how it would feel if she was in the third or fourth floor.

She saluted her neighbors; she always felt they were such lovely couple, she seldom spoke to them more than the customary good mornings and good evenings, but the woman was nice- veiled with much peace on her face, and her husband was always nice and quiet.

While she stepped down the stairs she hoped she was lucky enough to have such a quite life, her life passed in front of her eyes, she met her husband during her  first year at college, the first guy in her life, four years love story against her family’s will. They thought he was too young for responsibility. A year of engagement, and then they got married. But her family was right, he was not a man of responsibilities, but she couldn’t say that, after a year she couldn’t hold it and she told her family, who stood against her again, the title “divorced” being rejected in her big family, no matter how bad he is, no matter he is cheating on her constantly, no matter they didn’t share a life at all.

He divorced her for his latest girlfriend, but she is still disgraced by the word ”divorced”. A word that word meant a lot- it meant “available” for men, “danger” for women, “loser” for family, “burden” for her parents, “suspect” for her friends.

She went on, as there was no other solution, her work was her last and only refuge. The multinational cooperation she works in gives her good money that covers all her expenses and her boy’s as well, the father doesn’t pay for the boy, and he doesn’t care how they manage their life.

Asking her family for any kind of help was refused by her. In a society where divorce is not only a bad experience, but also a life time disgrace, she preferred to carry her burden alone, and doesn’t ask even for her parents’ help in babysitting her boy. A second marriage was not in her choice spectrum- if the boy’s dad didn’t care about him, why would a step father care?!!

She climbs down, thankful it is only one floor, she has a chronic case for her back, and the doctor warned her against using the stairs, wearing high heels or driving the car. She couldn’t stop doing any of them. Her high heels were a must to keep her work, and her car was the only way to keep the day going. She passed by the doorman room, saluted his wife that was preparing the morning tea. Such an easy life! She thought.

She got in her car with her boy, looked at the building for long, looked to the road in front of her with her long schedule in mind, then  she drove to work heading to her new day.

  

 By Nehal Ossama Elsoda

Revolution: The new question mark on women's rights?

Samira is a nine year old girl in post-revolution Egypt who is deeply influenced by her mother’s stories. Her mother was an active participant in the protests that mobilized the revolution and ousted Mubarak from power. Samira turns to her mother and voices a dream which is the hidden aspiration of many Arabic women - 'Mother, when I grow up - I want to become the prime minister of Egypt.' 

Will Samira's dream ever come true? This is a question that is facing several women in these Arabic countries where the recent revolutions and the ensuing rise of the empowered Islamist parties are threatening to consume the rights of women and their contribution in a political capacity. What is promising to pose serious complications for women is the conservative outlook that these parties hold towards women. They contest existing pro-women laws on religious grounds. This brings us to the eternal question - Will the revolution actually erode women's rights rather than improving them? 

While activists hoped that with the ouster of the dictatorship of Mubarak in Egypt and Zine Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, patriarchal customs would recede, women would find a new political stature and that they would active members in the new democracy - recent events promise otherwise.  

Case in point is Egypt, where the post revolution period has shown women being targeted. As early as March last year, on International Women's day, women demonstrators on Tahrir square saw resistance from men who claimed that the women' demands were against Islam. The day after this demonstration, seventeen women were taken to the Egyptian museum where they were verbally and physically abused and given electric shocks. They were later also subject to forced 'virginity tests' which have been condemned by feminists all over. The most recent and insulting of these sexist abuses took place on Dec 17th, when a woman demonstrator was assaulted and dragged across Tahrir square, while the armed forces tried to pull her clothes off, while physically assaulting her.. These appear to be a series of targeted attacks on women to terrorize them and to keep them out of political protests. While women had bravely fought along with men during those eighteen days of uprising last January, their rights are being ignored in the post-revolution period. 

The story is no different when it comes to political elections. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Al Nour - the conservative Salafi party, though required to have women as their party representatives, have stated that this representation is anti-Islamic. Women's political participation appears to be targeted as the military has decided to eliminate a 64 seat quota that existed in the Mubarak era. 

Another interesting aspect is that a lot of pro-women laws which address issues such as marriage, custody and the like, are being called into question - the argument made is that since they belong to the illegitimate regimes of Mubarak and Ben Ali, they need to be changed.  

Let’s turn to Libya, where on Liberation day, Jalil pledged to uphold Islamic laws , specifically to legalize polygamy. Many women in Libya have expressed resentment towards this - the fact that a man no longer needs to seek written consent from his wife to marry another woman, undermines their dignity. They also feel that there were far more important issues that needed to be addressed on Liberation day rather than polygamy.  

Even Tunisia, where women have historically enjoyed more rights than their counterparts in other countries, seems to have an ambiguous future.. It is unclear what connotation the Islamist party Ennahda's coming to power holds. While Ennahda promises to respect women's rights, many secularists doubt these promises and believe that the party is trying to appease both the progressive voter as well as the conservative thinkers. There have been political debates on previously silenced issues such as polygamy and forcing women to stay at women, but there is a marked absence of women from these debates. What signal does that send? Is it a warning sign that the extent of liberty women have enjoyed in Tunisia is in danger? 

The impact that the Islamist rule will have in each of these three states will be very unique and determined by the culture and political bend of mind of the common populace. There is no better time for activists and feminists to come together and to speak out. 

Given the fluidity of the situation, it is only when each individual voices their opinion that the Arabic woman will be able to boast of sustainable rights in these emerging post-revolution countries - something that will determine their fate not only in the political world but in the society as a whole. Over the last couple of years, women have passionately led public demonstrations, launched social media campaigns and been a significant element in the upheaval of the illegitimate regimes. To sum it up, they have fought to overthrow their dictators, but the question of the hour is - Can they overthrow male dominance?

By Kanika Jain Sah

An Everyday Story

It is 5 am, Cairo Local Time. She has to wake up, no matter if it’s freezing cold, there is too much to be done.

Looking beside her to her sleeping husband, she gets up to wear a scarf and a shawl; those two pieces of clothing that never let her down no matter if it is summer or winter.

She goes to the bakery to get bread for the residents of the building for which her husband work as a doorman. She carries the big wooden bar and goes ahead to stand in the line, she had to stand from 5:30, in order to get the bread by 7 am.

She carries the 150 bread loaves over the wooden bar, back to the building and distributes them on the apartments.

She prepares a bucket containing water and soap, prepares breakfast and tea, wakes up her husband to have breakfast before he cleans the building residents’ cars, and sends her kids to go to school.

She goes up to get residents’ kids and take them down to schools buses; she goes to market to get the grocery to residents, carries back home about 25 kg of different stuff.

It is about 10 am, she has to head up for some of those apartments’ to clean them before noon. She finishes by 2 pm, just to rush down to start preparing lunch for her husband, did she have breakfast? She doesn’t remember.

She starts preparing lunch while watching school buses taking kids back home, she has to meet the kids and lead them to their apartments.

Did she finish lunch? Yes, time to send one of her kids to call her husband from the café to have lunch.

Her kids start their homework, and her husband  has gone for a nap, she goes up to help one of the residents  prepare food for the next week.

She goes down to her room, starts cleaning the day’s mess, prepares dinner. She hears her husband calling, and she gives him the money she collected for today’s work. And he leaves to meet his friends.

Bedtime, she thinks about her day and about tomorrow. She has to follow the same routine that she has, for 20 years. She is only 38, married for 20 years. She left her small village to move to the big city. Despite all that she does, officially, she doesn’t work. Her husband does. But in reality, she works all day long and he doesn’t.

She thinks about all the ladies she works for during her day, how lucky they are, elite, fashionable ladies. But she doesn’t know that most of them share her life, but only just in a different way.

The fancy lady on the first floor is a single mother working hard to afford life for her kids after her husband left her for another woman.

The cute woman on the third floor has to give all her salary to her husband in order to avoid his violence.

She doesn’t know that 34% of Egyptian women are the only financial suppliers to their families, and  a huge percentage of women are helping their families by earning for them, almost holding their own ground as earners, next to the husband or father.

 She  doesn’t know that this is a part of the system that includes most of women.

Women are unsupported, with no pension. Women are abused. They do everything without getting to enjoy even basic aspects of life.

She doesn’t know so much. It is a sad fact, a harsh reality, but no one tries to change that sad fact.

Although the numbers are purely statistics, you can find this story in any given situation on a street in Egypt.

By Nehal Ossama Elsoda

One Brave Woman's Story

Mona Eltahawy, who was trapped, beaten and sexually assaulted by Egyptian security forces, tells her extraordinary story for the first time. This story has been sourced from The Hindu, which in turn sourced it from the Guardian Newspaper.

The last thing I remember before the riot police surrounded me was punching a man who had groped me. Who the hell thinks of copping a feel as you're taking shelter from bullets? Another man tried to protect him by standing between us, but I was enraged, and kept going back for more. A third man was trying to snatch my smart phone out of my other hand. He was the one who had pulled my friend Maged Butter and me into an abandoned shop — supposedly for safety's sake — and he wouldn't let go of my hand.

Mona Eltahawy, 44, from New York City, is seen with both arms in casts after being released by Egyptian security forces in Cairo on November 24, 2011. Photo: AP/ Courtesy Mona Eltahawy

It was November. Maged and I had come from Tahrir Square to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the frontline of clashes between protesters and the military, following a violent invasion of Tahrir by police and soldiers a few days earlier. Almost 40 people had died — including a distant relative — and 3,000 were wounded.

Maged tried to pull me away. “Enough smacking the groper, let the phone go.” It's clear to us both now that those men we'd met among the protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street had entrapped us. They worked with the security services, who were a few metres away, just beyond no man's land, and their job was to hold on to us until the riot police came.

And when they did come, I was the only one left in the deserted shop. I thought Maged had managed to escape, but he later told me he was nearby being beaten, able to see riot police beat me, too. “You were smart to defend your head,” he said. He needed stitches to his face, and still has contusions to his head and chest.

I suffered a broken left arm and right hand. The Egyptian security forces' brutality is always ugly, often random and occasionally poetic. Initially, I assumed my experience was random, but a veteran human rights activist told me they knew exactly who I was and what they were doing to my writing arms when they sent riot police conscripts to that deserted shop. Bashar al-Assad's henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims' occupations.

As the nightsticks whacked at my arms, legs and the top of my head (in the week that followed, I would discover new bruises every day), two things were at the front of my mind: the pain and my smart phone.

The viciousness of their attack took me aback. Yes, I confess, this feminist thought they wouldn't beat a woman so hard. But I wasn't just a woman. My body had become Tahrir Square, and it was time for revenge against the revolution that had broken and humiliated Hosni Mubarak's police. And it continues. We've all seen that painfully iconic photograph of the woman who was beaten and stripped to her underwear by soldiers in Tahrir Square. My phone fell as the four or five riot policemen beat me and then started to drag me towards no man's land. “My phone, I have to get my phone,” I said, and reached down to try to retrieve it. It wasn't the Twitterholic in me that threw herself after the phone, but the survivor. For the first three or four hours of detention, I knew they could do anything and no one would know. In the event, it was near-miraculous that, while I was at the Ministry, an activist with a smartphone came to discuss setting up a truce between protesters and security. As soon as he signed me in to Twitter, I sent out, “beaten arrested at Interior Ministry.” And then his phone battery died.

Most people detained the same week I was taken in ended up at a police station or jail, but for some reason I was taken to the Interior Ministry and was then handed over to military intelligence for almost 12 hours. The sexual assault couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but the psychic bruise remains the freshest.

The orange midnight air — a cocktail of street lights, an adjacent school on fire, and air that was more tear gas than oxygen — and the black outlines of the helmeted riot policemen invade my thoughts every day, but I feel as though I have dissociated myself from what happened. I read news reports about a journalist whose arms were broken by Egyptian police, but I don't connect them to the splints around my arms that allow only one-finger typing on a touchpad, nor with the titanium plate that will remain in my left arm for a year, to help a displaced fracture align and fuse.

But the groping hands — that, I know, happened to me. Sometimes I think of them as ravens plucking at my body. At one point I fell. Eye-level with their boots, all I thought was: “Get up or you will die.” They dragged me to the Interior Ministry, past men in plain clothes who were wearing the same surgical masks that we Tahrir-side civilians had worn against the tear gas. I almost shouted out, “Are you friend or foe?” Their eyes, dead to my assault, were my answer.

I began to panic. “They're probably going to charge me with spying.” I had lived in Israel for a period, where I had worked as a Reuters correspondent.

“You're safe now, I'll protect you.” A senior plainclothes officer reassured me. “If I wasn't here, there would be no one protecting you from them. See them, over there? Do you know what they'd do to you?” He was pointing to a mob just steps away. Even as the officer offered hollow protection, he did nothing.

It was an older man, from the military, who ended it. “Get her out.” “Why are you at war with the people?” I asked him. He looked me square in the eyes, fought his tears and swallowed. He couldn't speak. Others asked me again and again: “Why were you there?” “I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, I'm an analyst,” I said. But really I wanted to tell them I had longed to touch courage. It lived on Mohamed Mahmoud Street where young men — just boys in many cases, with their mothers' numbers written on their forearms in case they ended up in a morgue — would face off with security forces. Some of those who survived the tear gas and the bullets — rubber-coated and live — lost eyes. Security sharpshooters liked to aim for the head.

For months, Tahrir Square had been my mental touchstone: in New York City, where I live, and wherever I travelled to lecture on the revolution. But it was impossible just to stand by in the square and watch as the Motorbike Angels — volunteers who came on bikes to aid the overworked medics — zipped towards the field hospitals with their unconscious passengers, asphyxiated from the tear gas — and often worse — from the Mohamed Mahmoud frontline.

“If I die, I want to be buried in my Moroccan djellaba. It's laid out on my bed, ready,” tweeted blogger and activist Mohamed “Gemyhood” Beshir. The hits of tear gas he inhaled pushed him back, so younger men would break his fall and fill in for him on the frontline until he recovered.

Throughout my detention, I demanded medical care for my arms, and showed my captors the increasingly dramatic bruises developing on my hand and arm. Most asked me to make a fist. “See, it's just a bruise. You wouldn't be able to make a fist if you had a fracture.” And I told them deliberately graphic details about the sexual assault. Eyes would twitch and look away. No one wanted to hear.

I'll be damned if I carry this alone, I thought. And so I went on and on, until finally they heard, and one of them yelled out: “Our society has a sickness. Those riot police conscripts who assaulted you, do you know what we've done for them? We've lifted them out of their villages, scrubbed them clean and opened a tiny door in their minds.” “That's exactly why we're having a revolution,” I responded. “No one should have to live like that. Who created that misery they live in that you ‘rescued' them from?” I also let it be known that I was a U.S. citizen, and asked for a consular representative to be called. I knew that, as an Egyptian-American (I moved to the U.S. in 2000), I would be spared many horrors that countless unnamed Egyptians suffer. But I also anticipated the flip side. “Aren't you proud of being Egyptian? Do you want to renounce your citizenship,” the military intelligence officer asked me. Blindfolded, bone-tired and in agony from my fractures, I replied: “If your fellow Egyptians break your arms and sexually assault you, you'd want someone in the room you can trust.”

Last week's images from Egypt of the woman stripped down to her underwear and beaten have further unmasked the brutality of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that runs Egypt and which must be tried with crimes against the Egyptian people. I'm unable to look at any of those images of beatings because I feel the nightsticks fracturing my arms all over again. If I hadn't got up when I fell, they would have stomped on me as they stomped on that woman.

I spent the first two weeks back in New York on a painkiller high. It numbed the pain, as well as my ability to write. Once a week, I see a psychologist who specialises in trauma; an orthopaedic surgeon has operated on my left arm to realign the ulnar shaft and fix it in place with a titanium plate and screws, and I have regular physiotherapy. But this week's massive women's march in Tahrir has sharpened my focus once again. When a woman who took part wrote to tell me I'd helped to inspire the march because I'd spoken out on Egyptian TV about my beating and assault, I was finally able to cry. They were the tears of a survivor.

The Mubarak regime used systematic sexual violence against female activists and journalists, and here's the SCAF upholding that ignoble legacy. But to quote the women in Tahrir this week: “The women of Egypt are a red line.” My body, and mind, belong to me. That's the gem at the heart of the revolution. And until I return to Egypt in January, healed once again, I will tell that to the SCAF over and over. 

Don't Mess with Us!!!

When an image of a girl being beaten up and stripped by soldiers on a street did the rounds on the internet, it was no surprise that it went viral. Activists world over were flabbergasted at the sheer callousness of the soldiers for putting the girl through that, people were outraged at the display of flippancy in the soldiers’ treatment of the girl. The biggest display of antagonism came from thousands of women in Egypt, demanding the end of military rule in the country.

And what a movement it was!

On the evening of December 21, 2011, thousands of women walked the streets of Cairo, shouting out their anger at the flagrant disrespect of women and denouncing the brazen indecency in the soldiers’ behaviour exhibited in the beating, stripping and kicking of female demonstrators at Tahrir square. Drag me, Strip me, My Brother’s Blood will cover me, they shouted aloud. Demanding to see the top military officer in the country, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the women shouted out, Where is the Field Marshall? The girls of Egypt are here!

Not since 1919, has Egypt witnessed such a large scale demonstration by its women. About 82 years ago, a march against British colonialism was the only other instance of a massive display of women’s activism in Egypt. The burst of outrage is particularly commendable as being a rarity in the Arab world. Egypt has been strictly rooted in patriarchy, in its culture and social setting, to the extent that several attempts through this year in the hope of bringing in women’s protest events into fruition actually fizzled out before materializing, and the only one that did, actually wound up ending in physical harassment of the women protesters by a bigger group of men.

In Egypt, women were jostled out of politics almost entirely. Even when the winds of change blew over the country, swinging it into action in overthrowing its dictator, women who were at the helm of affairs during the initial rounds of the revolt were few and far between. Revolutionary coalitions that sprang up in the aftermath of the despot’s ouster did not have room for many women in prominent roles. The demonstrations against military rule that have come up in the wake of the military authority’s obduracy in the wake of a full-blown affinity for power have happened to descend into chaos as fights erupt between the youngsters and the police, as rocks fly full arcs between both factions.

The military rule in Egypt has been the denounced by most displeased observers. Human Rights groups denounced them for their ridiculous invasive virginity tests on women who were detained after a protest in March this year. However, despite the gross violation of their rights through these disgusting measures, only few women spoke out against the humiliation. This is evidently because of the hotbed of conservatism that Egypt is.

The demonstration by the Feminine Face of Egypt isn’t just a representation in an open challenge to the militia after their hero, an anonymous female protester was stripped and beaten, and another who attempted to rescue her was brutally beaten and now remains in a coma. It is a strong message that they send to the militia, that the protesters wanted more than anything, to dent the military council’s efforts to project the protesting masses as mere hooligans and arsonists. The women demanded a place, a voice, a reserved right in politics in Egypt. This demand hits the recent election victories of the conservative Islamist factions squarely in the face. The march brought out such a massive range of women out to the streets- housewives who came out into the demonstrating arena for the first time; mothers with newly born children, young university students. Most women had the traditional Muslim headscarf in place, some had veils covering their faces entirely. The assemblage was replete with chants demanding empowerment and “gallantry” from their male counterparts.

The conflagration of outrage burst out in response to the shameless indecency on part of the soldiers in Egypt. Video after video streamed a similar scene set in different parts with different officers- demonstrating and protesting women were grabbed, beaten and stripped. The most prominent and haunting picture (and video, of course) of the entire array was the one where a woman lay supine with a pair of soldiers grabbing her arms upwards, and one of them ripping off her veil, revealing a blue bra. The video goes on to show one of the soldiers kicking the woman in her chest. The incident was explained in gory detail at a press conference, when the girl’s friend called Hassan Shahen, narrated that he had told the soldiers that he was a journalist, and she was a girl, and he would take her away from there. But the soldiers wouldn’t listen, and one of them began beating him with a baton. For her part, the poor girl has remained obscure so far as her identity is concerned, and is known only as the blue bra girl.

On the one hand, there are people like you, me and Katherine who denounce this cheap behaviour. On the other hand, there have been a bunch of ridiculously parochial thinkers who have actually questioned the girl’s presence at Tahrir, going on to suggest that she should have been kept home in the first place, and some others who had the gall to remark that she would have wanted the “exposure” because she wore “fancy lingerie”, and still others who believed that she should have worn something under her veil.

As if.

On 19^th December, 2011, General Adel Emara, one of the members of the military council in rule, acknowledged the incident, but laid claim that the incident was blown out of proportion and studied without regard to broader circumstances that would explain what happened. Almost immediately, a stunning repartee stung back from a female journalist who demanded an apology, warning that a woman’s revolution wouldn’t be too far a prospect. The General brushed her remark aside like one would, a stray thread on their jacket.

This is a terribly surprising and callous mentality on part of the military council, and reflects a filthy set of double standards. When about a month ago, Aliaa Elmahdy and her friend Karim Amer posted naked pictures of themselves in an attempt to use their bodies as a sign of protest, all hell broke loose and the two girls were chastised verbally, by orthodox clerics denouncing them as violators of morality and inciters of indecency. Some wanted to punish the two girls based on their Constitution which is based on Islamic Law and Islamic Sanctions. And yet, it is the people from the very same brand of mentality that have beaten and stripped women.

In my research, I came across this website. It explained to me that the Quran says, "Women have the same rights in relation to their husbands as are expected in all decency from them, while men stand a step above them." Sura 2:228. This only specifies the degree of responsibility, not privilege, in man's role as provider, protector, maintainer, and leader of the family. Further down in the same article, the website explains, During the rein of Umar, women participated in law making. Umar made a proposal of a certain regulation concerning marriage. A woman in the mosque stood up and said, "Umar, you can't do that." Umar did not tell her, "Shut up, you are a woman, you have nothing to do with politics, etc." He asked, "Why?" She made her argument on the basis of Quran. In front of everybody, he stood up and said, "The woman is right and Umar is wrong," and he withdrew his proposal. That was the spirit in the early days of Islam. In the most authentic collection of hadith, Hadith Bukhari, a section is devoted to the participation of women, not only in public affairs, but in the battlefield, too, and not only as logistical support. Women carried arms, and when there was great danger to the Muslims, they volunteered to participate even in the battlefield.

Another website explains, According to it (The Quran), both man and woman have been created for the sake of each other. The Qur'an says: They (women) are raiment (comfort, embellishment and protection) for you, and you (men) are raiment for them. (Surah al-Baqarah: 2 : 187). 

What Islamic Law allows for this? What Islamic Law says women should be disrespected? What Islamic Law allows men to shamelessly beat, strip and kick women? Why are there double standards in the understanding of “morality”? When one hand drums a beat saying that women should abide by a certain “morality”, how can the other hand drum up a different drum and say that it is okay for a soldier to strip a woman? Until this warped understanding of Islam ideology changes, it is painfully true that women will always be under the thumb of male domination.