Muslim leaders have blamed Muslim women for leading men astray, claiming that if they are not adequately covered, men cannot be held responsible for their actions. OK. Now these Egyptian girls, who were properly veiled and went out to a movie to celebrate the end of Ramadan, were attacked.
Word spread through the crowds of people waiting to enter the cinema at around 7 pm that the ticket office was unexpectedly closing. This news angered 40 or 50 male youths who became violent and hysterical, according to witnesses. They began to rampage, losing control and damaging properties.
Then some of the youths began to taunt and molest the women who were standing nearby. Dina recounted that she and other girls suddenly found themselves almost cornered by men. In panic and confusion she was split from her girl friends, whom she later heard escaped in a taxi.
"It was like being in a battle and I didn't know what was happening," Dina said. "Then the boys grabbed my buttocks, my breasts, and they groped me, all over my body."
"I sprayed them with my pepper spray can, but others kept coming. I saw a car whose driver was parking by the roadside and I tried to get in," she said. "But before I was in, one of the guys grabbed my buttocks and I slipped, cutting my hand."
Interesting that she carries pepper spray, but nevertheless, the next level of protection should be the authorities, right?
The interior ministry later released a statement saying that a "disturbance" had indeed taken place, but denied that women were molested. If they had been, the ministry statement reasoned, someone would have complained to the local police station yet no one did.
So, young ladies, why does he say such a thing?
According to an unsubstantiated claim by a friend of a victim, a small number of women went to the Qasr Al Nil police station shortly after the incident to lodge a complaint, but they were told to go away and take their charges to a higher authority. The source suggested that this is likely the reason why the interior ministry has no record of sexual abuse charges.
Nearby shop owners corroborated the story and were appalled at the behaviour. From other accounts on the web, there were many women attacked -- not just a small handful of girls. Taxi drivers tried to help, some in the shops pulled the girls in to safety, and yet the police did nothing. One reporter explained the dilemma:
"Simply put, women are encouraged to shut up and put up with it. Harassers make their catcalls, or worse, with impunity because our culture mandates that decent women do not attract attention to themselves."
In her piece, attention is brought to the way society maintains implicit silence when sexual assaults happen in the country, which, Mabrouk maintains, needs to be addressed.
"Ten years ago, my sister saw an argument on a bus where a man who had just groped a woman assaulted her when she dared to object. He grabbed the front of her clothes and tossed her around like a rag doll. The woman was wearing a khimar - a circular head covering with a hole for the face that covers the entire upper body - and she was carrying a baby.
"No one on the bus said anything. The bus driver asked the man to get off the bus, but no one else lifted a finger to help the woman."
Read the whole thing here
No comments:
Post a Comment