A Moment for Outrage: Abuse of Women in Egyptian Custody

The Egyptian Armed Forces Council, now ruling the country, portrays itself as the protector of the Revolution, and is still held in high esteem by many of the young people who made the Revolution. I have known a great many Egyptian senior officers, and have generally admired them more than their counterparts in the political realm. But in addition to its tin ear on the referendum and earlier crackdown on the encampment in Tahrir, we now have a profoundly disturbing accusation. Amnesty International says it has testimony that women arrested in the March 9 crackdown in Tahrir were subjected to strip searches (by women but within the sight of males) and "virginity tests," the latter an invasive examination by a man in a lab coat, accompanied by the threat that those found not to be virgins might be charged with prostitution. One woman who insisted she was a virgin but whose test allegedly "proved" otherwise (suggesting the man in the lab coat was no doctor) was reportedly beaten. The exact nature of these "virginity tests" is not spelled out. I cannot, however, imagine anything that doesn't border on criminal sexual abuse.

This was picked up today by many Western and some Egyptian press outlets, but all you really need to read is the Amnesty report linked above.

Words fail me. Well, not really, but since this is MEI's blog and not my personal pulpit I try to keep it PG-13 at worst, so I can't use the words that come to mind.

If this is true, and Amnesty isn't known for fabricating atrocities, it is a crime and if carried out under the auspices of the Army, a blot on the honor of the Army and of the state it currently represents. The Army denies it, but if anyone in uniform was involved in this, the Armed Forces Council should punish them severely. The honor of a great country and the honor of the uniform demand it.

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For International Women's Day after Tahrir Today: A Brief Tribute to Hoda Sha‘arawi

In belated tribute to the brave Egyptian women who were harassed and cursed in their demonstration for International Women's Day in Tahrir Square today, a moment to reflect on the pioneer of Egyptian feminism, Hoda (Huda) Sha‘arawi.

Sha‘arawi (1879-1947) is generally seen as the first real feminist activist within the Egyptian national movement. Though she has a street named for her in central Cairo, I fear that if she were alive today she would be shocked by what she would see as a retrograde direction in women's rights. For background see her Wikipedia page here; a page devoted to her here; and a Facebook fan site here.

Educated, the daughter and wife of prominent men, she was active in the nationalist movement and organized women's demonstrations in the 1919 Revolution. She visited Europe, and attended an international women's suffrage conference in Rome in 1923 (it is worth remembering women were just achieving the vote even in the US and Europe). On her return to Cairo in 1923, the same year as Sa‘d Zaghloul's return, she famously and symbolically removed her veil in public at the railway station. (Though she was more active on political and other rights issues, she is perhaps most remembered for the symbolic removal of the veil.) The same year she founded the Egyptian Feminist Union. She was active in the Wafd Party until it rejected her proposed reforms; at left she is shown (on the left) with Safia Zaghloul, wife of Sa‘d Zaghloul (at right).

Though many of her goals were frustrated, she raised consciousness among elite Egyptian women and was seen as as pioneer of later women activists who achieved the vote and other progress in the Nasser era and since.

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International Women's Day in Tahrir

An account by Ursula Lindsey of the confrontations between the International Women's Day demonstrators in Midan al-Tahrir in Cairo today and their male hecklers, some of whom drove demonstrators from the square.

Sadly, it's s reminder that the political victories of the past few weeks, though supported by men and women acting together, have done more for political reform than for gender equality. The proposed amendments to the constitution are so phrased that while they open up candidacies for the presidency, they still don't envision any President who isn't a male. Harassment on the streets of Cairo is notorious, though surprising numbers of Egyptian males deny it's an issue. Revolution or no revolution, the women of Egypt, though among the earliest activists in the Arab world, still are facing frustrations.

Final thought: Don't any of these men have daughters?

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