Foreign Policy In Focus

In the void left by the government's utter lack of action, citizens are stepping forward to protect women at demonstrations.

The prevalence of sexual terrorism in Cairo—emerging prominently in international media late last month—continues to cast a shadow over protestors and activists marching on Tahrir Square and other popular protest sites. It has become a polarizing issue of its own amid continuing protests against the government.

Russ Wellen earlier this month implicated Egypt's large percentage of jobless, frustrated youth as contributing significantly to the problem, observing that “these crimes can be classified as fallout from not only the Egyptian government's repressive policies, but its failure to improve the economy.” And indeed, groups of these oppressed, resentful men often linger in the square. One such nameless youth bluntly told Aleem Maqbool of the BBC when asked about the increase of sexual assaults in the square, “We are depressed, we can't find jobs and money, what do you expect?”

The answer varies widely depending on whom you ask.

Take Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah, a radical Salafist sheikh known as “Abu Islam,” who was arrested for “defamation of religion” for his controversial remarks regarding the presence of women in Tahrir Square. According to him, it is halal (permissible) to rape female protestors and that these women “have no shame, no fear and not even feminism [sic].”

If only the culture of victim blaming these female protestors ended with one delusional man—but it seems it is only considered “defamation of religion” to victim blame if you are not a part of the government.

The Shura Council Human Rights Committee—part of Egypt's upper house of Parliament—in a press conference went so far as to claim that these rampant sexual assaults are, essentially, not the Interior Ministry's problem. Rana Muhammad Taha of The Daily News Egypt provides a disturbing round-up of these statements from the committee:

“Women should not mingle with men during protests,” said Reda Al-Hefnawy, Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) member. “How can the Ministry of Interior be tasked with protecting a lady who stands among a group of men?”
…
“A woman who joins protests among thugs and street inhabitants should protect herself before asking the Ministry of Interior to offer her protection,” said Adel Afifi, a prominent board member of the Salafi Party Al-Asala.
…
“The woman bears the offence when she chooses to protest in places filled with thugs,” said Salafi Al-Nour Party member Salah Abdel Salam.

At the same session, a female Muslim Brotherhood MP suggested that these women “think twice” before demonstrating “so as not to become prey to sexual offenders and armed thugs who commit rape.”

The Muslim Brotherhood—the ruling Islamist party in Parliament—has also been implicated in orchestrating these sexual assaults particularly against Tahrir Square, a “symbol” of the revolution—and indeed, their response thus far has not laid such accusations to rest. During the human rights committee session, Brotherhood MPs were using the sexual attacks as justification to push anti-protest legislation. As Vivian Salama of The Daily Beast reports, the absurdity of the government’s response is not lost on women’s organizations in Egypt:

“What does our government do? Instead of implementing laws that make sexual assault a crime, they are making the publicity of these attacks a crime,” said Nancy Omar … spokeswoman of Egyptian Women; Red Line, a group of volunteers from various political factions united to defend the rights of women. “And then they question our motives for going to these protests—how silly!”

In the void left by the government’s utter lack of action, such non-profit organizations and volunteer groups have instead stepped up to the plate to protect, assist, and defend victims of these attacks. Some police common protest areas, moving quickly to save women who could get caught in “circles of hell,” groups of men who violently swarm victims in horrifically organized tiers. Others help shepherd women to hospitals and help pay the costs, or offer free self-defense courses as a preventative measure.

It is tragic that the impetus to enforce basic human rights has fallen on the shoulders of civilians. One can only hope that these volunteers and activists can mitigate this ongoing trend of violence against women during Egypt’s upheaval—especially since in the face of government apathy and a culture of rampant victim blaming, they are the only buffer left to safeguard women’s political voices.

Leslie Garvey is an intern at Foreign Policy in Focus.

Two years after the Lara Logan assault, women continue to be attacked at protests in Tahrir Square.

Remember the Tahrir Square attack on Lara Logan two years ago while she was covering the demonstrations for CBS News? It seems that women -- even protestors -- continue to be sexually assaulted. At the Egypt Independent, Tom Dale writes:

A woman was sexually assaulted with a bladed weapon on Friday night, leaving cuts on her genitals, in central Cairo, in the midst of what was purportedly a revolutionary demonstration. … She was one among at least 19 women sexually assaulted in and around Tahrir Square on Friday night, according to accounts collated by Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, an activist group. … There were other attacks involving bladed weapons. Six women required medical attention. No doubt there were more assaults, uncounted.

To experience the sheer horror of one of these attacks second-hand,  read this account at the Nazra for Feminist Studies website. Meanwhile, Dale again:

It is neither my place nor my wish to draw conclusions about "the revolution" from all this: I do not believe that is possible or wise. But I can say that as the familiar chants resonated in the square, the demands for justice, a new government and new constitution, I felt a little sick.

"Tahrir Square," he writes, "is both a place in which people both demand dignity for themselves and, in some cases, violently strip it from others. … It is not inevitable that Egypt's revolutionary street politics be undercut by a current of rape."

Still, there's a certain inevitability to the emergence of mob mentality. Especially with all the unemployed -- and thus un-marriageable -- young men in Egypt. Ideally, the perpetrators would be singled out and subjected to some form (not fatal!) of "revolutionary justice." Still, these crimes can be classified as fallout from not only the Egyptian government's repressive policies, but its failure to improve the economy. At Time, Tony Karon elaborates on Egypt's foundering economy.

Youth unemployment, one of the key drivers of the revolutionary upsurge in 2011, continues to grow, with official figures revealing that 25% of economically active [not sure what that means -- RW] people ages 25 to 29, and 41% of those ages 19 to 24, are jobless.

Karon again: "President Mohamed Morsi's plans to save Egypt’s sinking economy hinge on" -- stop me if you've heard this one before --

… a $5 billion loan from the IMF [which] can be accessed only on the condition of implementing austerity measures that will bring a sharp spike in the economic pain suffered by millions of impoverished households.

In any event, male Egyptian protesters would do well to remember it's not their sisters who are oppressing them. Diverting resources to policing their own while at the same time fighting the Egyptian government only slows the advance of their cause and diminishes its integrity.

Cross-posted from the Arabist.

With the Muslim Brotherhood taking a clear majority in the parliamentary elections (followed by the Nour Party), SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces -- Egypt's ruling junta) now finds itself with a more concrete array of forces to work to manage. 

SCAF is neither incompetent nor omnipotent. But "uncivil society" – a term historian Stephen Kotkin uses to describe the Eastern European equivalent of "the hybrid military-civilian deep state and its manipulations" – has strong roots in Egypt.

And while many former Warsaw Pact nations offer encouraging examples of how newly emerging civil society can mitigate the old guard's machinations, there is one former Warsaw Pact member whose post-communist history does not offer an encouraging example for Egypt's near-future, and that is Russia. Rodric Braithwaite, London's last ambassador to the USSR, could just as easily have written these words regarding Washington's relationship with Egypt:

We lectured the Russians on their corrupt politics and their violations of human rights. We gave them expensive and often irrelevant economic advice. We insisted they adopt western foreign policy aims, but ignored what they thought were their legitimate interests... We interfered in their neighbourhood. Our advice was discredited as Russians came to believe that we were untrue to our own principles and unable even to run our much vaunted liberal economy properly.

Thirty-plus years of engagement with Sadat, Mubarak and now, SCAF, have meted out a similar legacy for Egyptian civil society: an unpopular foreign policy in the near-abroad, clear human rights hypocrisies and questionable economic assistance that mostly benefited entrenched party hacks and up-and-coming oligarchs within the walls of Heliopolis Palace; giving Egypt a ruling elite not unlike the oligarchs who called at Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin. An oligarchy that, as in Russia, included the leader's own family circle, making anti-corruption prosecutions extremely difficult. The coziness between Yeltsin and Clinton was not lost on Russians. And 30 years of warm embraces between Mubarak and US presidents hasn't been lost on the Egyptian people.

Mubarak's order was crumbling, and it was apparent that the U.S., caught off-guard by the scale of the demonstrations and fence-sitting of the military, was not in a position to use its muscle to help its old friend stay in power. His cronies decided to take their chances by establishing themselves as the power brokers for a future order. Like the supposed "liberals" of Russia, they will only offer new freedoms with strings attached.

But despite these daunting challenges, civil society in Egypt (and now, Russia) continues to protest against the troika of military-intelligence cliques, well-connected corporatists and pliant parliamentarians that dominate the political scenes. Still the power brokers, the throne whisperers, SCAF will strive ever harder to set the tone for post-Mubarak politics. The leaders of the US and Israel, but not Tahrir, will be on their side.

At Salon, Avi Asher-Schapiro reports from Tahrir Square that a "protester, who told me his name was Karim, held up a used teargas canister and pointed to the label: 'Made in USA.' … The serial number and blue markings on the tear gas canister indicate that it was manufactured by Combined Systems Incorporated (CSI), a weapons manufacturer based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania." In fact:

This is not the first time CSI 's products have been used against Egyptian citizens. During Egypt's January revolution, CSI tear gas was employed by the Mubarak regime against demonstrators in Tahrir Square. … According to the State Department web site, the United States gave Egypt $1.2 million in 2009 for tear gas, riot control agents, and associated equipment.

Also, in January, Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel reported:

Jawaher Abu Rahmah's January 1, 2011 death after she was overcome with tear gas at a protest in Bil'in has triggered a mobilization against the companies that provide Israel's tear gas. … Combined Systems Inc. of Jamestown, Pennsylvania is the primary provider of tear gas to the Israeli army.

Why exactly does possession by the Egyptian military of U.S. made-tear gas offend the protestors, arguably more so than U.S. arms? Perhaps because they are aware that tear gas is not used in combat. Any use by the military is either to quell the populace in a country that it's invaded and occupied -- or, militarizing a police function, using it to suppress its own populace in the service of shoring up military rule.
 
At Salon, Glenn Greenwald also addressed this on Sunday, November 20.

… U.S. Government — in the name of Terrorism — has aggressively para-militarized the nation’s domestic police forces by lavishing them with countless military-style weapons and other war-like technologies, training them in war-zone military tactics, and generally imposing a war mentality on them. Arming domestic police forces with para-military weaponry will ensure their systematic use even in the absence of a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil; they will simply find other, increasingly permissive uses for those weapons. 

In this instance, he was speaking of OWS crackdowns, which are bearing a stronger resemblance to those in Egypt every day.

Lieven De Cauter presents a letter from his colleague in Iraq, Asma Al Haidari:

April 15^th. What am I to write to you about today? It is the Friday of the Free! For this is what our young revolutionaries have called it. I will start with the demonstrations on Tahrir Square in Baghdad. Of course all the bridges and streets leading to Tahrir were cut off but people came all the same and are still there. They are chanting that Maliki is a liar and a thief. They are chanting that whoever does not say Tahrir, “Liberation”, his life is a loss. They are daring the security forces who are there in great numbers to detain them. I have always known and told you what we are made of, how could the Americans have ever thought that they can colonize us? You can feel the atmosphere of Tahrir. You can see and feel the life that is Tahrir. Tahrir belongs to the People.

A man of 50 who cries, says: ‘Death to Iran! Death to America! Death to Maliki! 80% of Parliament and the people who rule are Iranians, there is no loyalty to Iraq. Long Live Iraq! All our sons are in detention centers, my 16 year old son is in prison. Iraq is the crown on our heads. We will all die for Iraq. Iraq will live forever!’ Then there is a young man who shouts: ‘Down with sectarianism! Down with the Quota System! Death to  Iran! Let all Iraqi Young Men rebel and fight for Iraq! If Mohammed is a Sunni then I am a Shia, but we are all one. We are all brothers. We all have the same blood!’ Women cry and men, grown up men shed tears of agony and anguish for Iraq and for our sons and daughters, for our country that has been raped and pillaged.

Ah, the scenes in Tahrir were phenomenal, because Maliki and his henchmen yesterday ordered people to demonstrate in two football grounds, again on a sectarian basis, can you imagine? But he is a stupid man and so are his advisors. The Iraqis are much too intelligent and clever for all of this and proved that they are now at the point of no return in their rebellion and revolt. They assembled in Tahrir and told Maliki and his parliamentarians to go and play football in the stadiums he has assigned.

The young man who said let's all unite and fight also said that he was sure a massacre was going to be committed by the security forces against the demonstrators today. But these same security forces could not stop them from coming to Tahrir. Men, women, and children, Muslims and Christians  who are speaking out about the “government's” criminality against them – it was amazing and enthralling. The crushed Iraqi middle class in all its colours and hues is out and will remain out. This is the beginning of civil disobedience, all very peaceful but full of force. The women who are in Tahrir are in the hundreds, all women whose sons or husbands have disappeared in the secret prisons of Maliki and the Occupation. But Iraqis have broken the chains. The world should watch this. But the world is silent and apparently deaf and blind. Where is the free western press? Reading the New York Times one would believe that their correspondents are living on another planet. All the mainstream press is silent, in fact. 

Today, there were also large demonstrations in Basra, all over Anbar province and  in Babil as well. In Diwaniya they were threatened by the security forces that they would all be detained. Of course, in Sulaymaniya the crowds are in the tens of thousands on Azadi Square. The scene is developing and the protest is building up. Then there is Mosul, where for the past 6 days  a huge demonstration and gathering has been gradually grown in numbers and today there are 5,000 people in The Square of the Free, the old prison square. All the tribal sheikhs who had not sold themselves to the occupation came from the very south of Iraq, from Nassiriya and Basra. There were tribal sheikhs and leaders from Kut, Diyala, a contingent of Kurdish demonstrators from Sulaymaniya. They came from Haweeja and Tikrit. The Christians in the north as well as tribal leaders from Anbar, Kubaissa and Fallujah. We have come together again, this time publicly, for all the world to see.

But what is most amusing is that today the American Occupation's helicopters made a great entrance on the stage demonstrating that the American Administration really does believe the democracy it alleges it brought to Iraq is in fact equal to garbage… literally! It was funny and it is all on film: daily,  since the vigil and demonstration started in Mosul,  American helicopters buzzed the demonstrators and the demonstrators answered back by throwing their shoes at them in disdain! Today, the helicopters performed what they considered their coup de grace, by flying very low over their heads and throwing down bags of garbage. When the people were asked for comments they answered that the Americans throw garbage every day since the occupation: all the depleted uranium, all the white phosphorous, all the drugs, all the disease, tyranny, oppression, plunder, theft, lies and illiteracy they brought with them. So we, Iraqis, know everything and we will have justice at the end of the day, when a new dawn comes. The feeling is that it is going to be quite soon.

Lieven De Cauter is a philosopher, writer and activist. He teaches philosophy of culture (in Leuven, Brussels and Rotterdam). His latest books: The Capsular Civilization. On the City in the Age of Fear (2004) and, as co-editor, Heterotopia and the city (2008); Art and activism in the Age of globalization (2011). He is initiator of the BRussells Tribunal.