This was the comment of an Egyptian TV Host when the field reporter told her that there have been several sexual assault incidents in Tahrir Square!
“The one who shuts his mouth against harassment is a silent devil”
Image credit: Flickr user Gigi Ibrahim used under a Creative Commons License
After watching the widely shared video on YouTube showing a mob harassing and stripping a woman’s clothes off during the celebrations of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s inauguration in Tahrir Square, Egypt yesterday and hearing this anchor comment, I deeply felt that Egypt is witnessing a social and a moral disaster.
Tahrir square, the place which witnessed the great revolution of the 25th of January 2011, the place where people lost their lives fighting for human dignity and for better life, now witnessed one of the cruelest crimes ever not only against women’s rights, but also against humanity as well.
What makes the incident harder to believe is that people around the rapists didn’t even try to stop them, instead some of them joined the assault and formed a huge crowd attacking the woman and others just stopped by filming the incident on their phones without any willingness to help the girl or fight the rapists. Finally, when one of the witnesses took the initiative to call the policemen, they replied that they couldn’t go through this crowd. I’m wondering, did all of these people lose their humanity? Is it fine for them to witness such a horrible incident and just stay watching, mocking or shooting a short movie? For me, the passive witnesses, the anchor, and the policemen are not less brutal than the rapists!
This incident happened despite last week’s decision to enforce harsher penalty on sexual harassers. The law that has been enforced states that: “Any person who sexually harasses a man or a woman in any form will be jailed for at least six months and fined 3,000 EGP to 5,000 EGP ($420 to $700), or may receive one of the two penalties.” But actually this penalty doesn’t seem to be enough, and also, it doesn’t include any reference to group sexual rape. The only penalty that would be fair enough to heal the harassed victim, let Egyptian women feel safe about their future, and prevent any potential harassment incidents is execution.
How would this this woman feel if her rights were not to be gained by fierce penalty? How can she face this cruel society once again? How would her life look like after such disaster, if I – just the reader of her news – felt insecure?
The video was frequently removed from YouTube as it had clear scenes of the woman’s naked body, which was shocking because videos on YouTube are usually censored.
Sharing the video was disrespectful to the privacy of the woman, the victim of the incident, and disrespectful for the feelings of the reader as well who would probably be emotionally and psychologically affected – only in case they are real human being! I hope that people stop sharing or searching for the video because once the harassed woman has the chance to move on with her life, this video will never let her!
Stop Harassment, Stop being passive.
Gehad Kenawy is an intern at The WIP. She hails from Cairo and is a graduate fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.