A
Facebook group called Egypt's Queens:
Imprisoned has been keeping an online list of women detained by Egyptian
security forces since the July 2013 military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.
The group says more than 2,500 peaceful protestors, men and women, have been killed and at least 15,000 political opponents have been detained, persecuted and tortured since last summer.
The group, which does not disclose any political affiliation, says "human rights violations have reached unprecedented records."
When Egyptians took to the streets to oust President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, they demanded the end of the dictatorship, the corruption, the difficult conditions of life and violations of human rights.
Three years later, those democratic longings are smashed, said Fatima Said, spokesperson for the London-based organization British Egyptians for Democracy. "It is definitely much worse than under Mubarak," she said during a Skype interview last week. She described the treatment of women in detention as "horrific, absolutely horrific."
Said denounced the "double standard" by media groups who treat the abuse of female detainees linked to the Muslim Brotherhood as less newsworthy. "When the women belong to the Islamist camp there is much less regard towards them, not so many people want to cover the story because it is more palatable to have someone who is described as liberal and who is being repressed." She insists that women from all parts of the society have been assaulted by the current military regime.
Said recalls women being arrested during protests organized by liberal groups late last year. "The women were harassed while being detained and after being detained the police took and drove them out into the desert, dumped them there and told them to make their way back home," she said.
Public Assembly Restricted
A protest law restricting the right to public assembly signed in late November by interim President Adly Mansour has given the Interior Ministry wide discretionary powers over protests, including the use of firearms against peaceful protesters. Protesters convicted of breaking the law can face up to five years in prison and fines of $14,513.
Large numbers of the young women arrested since July 2013 are students, some as young as 15, Said told Women's eNews. Since they are minors, they are being detained in juvenile centers but they are still going through the same kind of sexual abuse, torture and harsh treatments meted out to adults.
Egypt's Queens: Imprisoned's data--based on personal anecdotes collected through its member network--include stories of what women have suffered in detention.
In a Feb. 1 post, the site tells the story of Dr. Mervet Galeela, a radiologist, who "has been beaten and arrested while working at her hospital . . . for having a small Rabia symbol pinned to her clothes." The doctor is currently detained and under interrogation.
Rabia means fourth in Arabic and at first the sign was used to signal outrage at the events of Aug. 14, 2013, when thousands of men, women, children, infants and older people were killed in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo during a pro-Morsi protest. Since then it has been adopted more generally as a symbol of resistance and protest against military regimes worldwide.
Along with the leaders of several other groups, British Egyptians for Democracy's Said said "trumped up" political charges are being used against detainees. She said mere possession of a camera, wearing badges that say "down with military rule in Egypt" or making the four-finger "Rabia sign" can lead to arrest and conviction.
In a Skype interview, the spokesperson for Egypt's Queens: Imprisoned, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, said female demonstrators on college campuses are being threatened by security and police officers. "'We are going to rape you and get you pregnant,' they say to the women," said the spokesperson.
Strongman Tactics Return
When Morsi was ousted by the Egyptian military last summer some liberal protest factions held back from decrying it as a military coup. But popular discontent with strongman tactics associated with the regime of ousted President Mubarak is now spreading.
Egypt's current president named a new prime minister on Feb. 25, a day after his predecessor, Hazem el-Beblawi, resigned abruptly without stating his reason. El-Beblawi was appointed after Morsi's ousting in July 2013.
Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the minister of defense, is widely seen as the favorite to win the presidential election expected this year but not yet scheduled. In April 2012, al-Sisi, who led the anti-Morsi coup, defended the practice of submitting female protesters, those who demonstrated against the military in the aftermath of the Mubarak's ouster, to virginity tests. He argued they were carried out "to protect the girls from rape, and the soldiers and officers from accusations of rape."
A couple of weeks ago, an Egyptian woman, in a video posted by Rassd News Network on Youtube, added to the tableau of violence against women. She said she gave birth handcuffed to her hospital bed after being randomly arrested on her way to the hospital on Jan. 14. Dahab Hamdy, 18 years old, was eight months pregnant when she accidentally got caught up in an anti-coup protest. She faces charges of taking part in an illegal protest, rioting and disrupting the polling process.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International called for the release of three women arrested on Nov. 12, 2013, after clashes erupted on the campus of Mansoura University between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"They are facing fabricated and illegitimate charges simply for exercising their rights," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa program director at Amnesty International, said in a press statement.
In a statement on their website, the rights group said: "The authorities have displayed a brazen disregard for the right to peaceful assembly in recent months and have sought to clamp down on any form of dissent with a restrictive new protest law." After four adjournments, the trial for the three women is now scheduled for March 28.
Earlier, the Ministry of Interior denied the allegations of arbitrary arrests and torture in jail since the protest law was issued in November, Ahram Online reported Feb. 12. The Egyptian online publication said that 16 human rights organizations are demanding "swift investigations into what they described as "increasing and shocking allegations of torture and sexual assaults against those detained at police stations since 25 January."
Students' Families Recount Abuse
The London-based Arab Organization for Human Rights said in a Feb. 10 press statement that it had received complaints from the families of 12 students imprisoned in Egypt. "Families reported that the girls were assaulted, tortured, sexually harassed and had their Islamic head covers removed by security and police officers following their arrest. The girls were also subjected to virginity tests several times at Nasr police station in addition to being tortured there before being transferred," the statement said.
Said, the spokesperson for British Egyptians for Democracy, said women who are victimized in detention can be blamed and stigmatized for the rape and other sexual abuses they suffer. That makes it hard to track what's happening. The same stigma and rejection is even worse for men, making those stories even harder to document.
Women Against the Coup is a group that belongs to the National Alliance Supporting Legitimacy, which describes itself as an Islamist coalition. However, Alaa Hosni, the group's spokesperson, said not all of its members are Islamists.
Hosni's group has documented 1,500 cases of abuse against female detainees since Morsi's ouster in July 2013. The number is considered low due to the difficulty of tracking the incidents in the context of pressures and intimidations by security forces, Hosni said in a Skype interview this week. She said the group has documented 150 cases of women who are currently detained.
Among them, 30 women have been subjected to a pregnancy test and around five were subjected to a virginity test. Hosni has heard rumors about women getting pregnant after being raped in detention, but so far she cannot confirm or refute them. She could not provide an estimate of the number of women and girls who have been missing or kidnapped since the past summer.
Hajer Naili is a New York-based reporter for Women's eNews. She has worked for several radio stations and publications in France and North Africa and specializes in Middle East and North Africa women in Islam.
There is no guarantee that women will be better protected. Omar Ahmed, general coordinator for the Global Coalition for the Egyptian Women's Union, based in Cairo, said in a phone interview. "The Constituent Assembly only has five women out of 50. There is no representation of women who have been [demonstrating] in Tahrir Square or the younger generation of women. There is no guarantee that women's rights can be protected."
Women's groups claim that without fair representation, their voices could be drowned out by the din of Egypt's economic and security woes.
The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, also based in the capital, posted an open letter on its website in early September calling for women to be one-third of the assembly.
The organization said the lack of female representation on such an important legislative committee was yet another means to exclude women from political participation, a practice it says was also employed by the government of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader driven from power in July by mass protests backed by the military.
Morsi supporters, meanwhile, say all human rights are now in peril.
Since security forces cleared out the two pro-Morsi sit-ins in the capital and killed hundreds of demonstrators across the country, authorities have been cracking down on Brotherhood leadership. They have arrested numerous Brotherhood members and supporters, including around 240 women who are still being held, said journalist Mostafa Al Khateeb, who works at the flagship newspaper of the group's political wing.
Killings and Rights Violations
"For two months, we have seen thousands of Egyptians killed by the military and police forces," said Al Khateeb over the phone. "This has never happened before in such numbers." He added that the right to stage peaceful sit-ins and protests has also been violated. "Now whenever we have these protests police forces attack. I think human rights have deteriorated to a level that is unprecedented."
This has forced Morsi supporters into hiding.
"Nowadays, I'm not staying in my home," Al Khateeb said. Saying many are shaving their beards, which might mark them as Morsi supporters, he added: "They are going into hiding to continue their peaceful activities. There are tens and hundreds of people being arrested from their homes."
In the latest arrest, security forces detained on Sept. 17 a Brotherhood senior communications official, Gehad el-Hadad, whose resume includes a stint at the Clinton Foundation, established by President Bill Clinton, The New York Times reported.
Under the Morsi government, women were less than 2 percent of the country's lower house of parliament before it was dissolved, versus around 12 percent in 2010 under former President Hosni Mubarak, the military strongman who was driven from power in by a popular uprising in two years ago.
The last Constituent Assembly, responsible for drafting the 2012 constitution thrown out by the military in July, had just five women out of 100 members. All five women, and numerous others, eventually quit the committee following sharp criticism over the group's efforts to rush the drafting process.
The Brotherhood's strongest show of hostility to women's rights came in March, when it condemned the United Nation's latest report on ending violence against women, saying it was "un-Islamic" and put family values at risk.
One female member of the constitution-drafting Constituent Assembly is Hoda Elsadda, co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum and a board director for the Global Fund for Women.
She told The Daily News Egypt that her primary concern is finding ways of putting an end to discrimination, regardless of race, gender or religion, as well as stopping torture at the hands of authorities.
Vivian Thabet, the women's rights program director for CARE Egypt, says she knows of Elsaada's work, adding that she is well-equipped to represent Egypt's women. The other four female assembly members include: the National Council of Motherhood and Childhood's Azza El Ashmawy, the National Council for Womens Mervat El Talawi, the National Council for Human Rights' Mona Zu El Fakar and Industrial Chambers committee representative Abla Mohey El Deen.
"I am disappointed with the number [of female members] but I am really proud of the quality," Thabet said in a phone interview. "Because I believe that most of [those chosen] are very close to women's issues and concerns."
The group says more than 2,500 peaceful protestors, men and women, have been killed and at least 15,000 political opponents have been detained, persecuted and tortured since last summer.
The group, which does not disclose any political affiliation, says "human rights violations have reached unprecedented records."
When Egyptians took to the streets to oust President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, they demanded the end of the dictatorship, the corruption, the difficult conditions of life and violations of human rights.
Three years later, those democratic longings are smashed, said Fatima Said, spokesperson for the London-based organization British Egyptians for Democracy. "It is definitely much worse than under Mubarak," she said during a Skype interview last week. She described the treatment of women in detention as "horrific, absolutely horrific."
Said denounced the "double standard" by media groups who treat the abuse of female detainees linked to the Muslim Brotherhood as less newsworthy. "When the women belong to the Islamist camp there is much less regard towards them, not so many people want to cover the story because it is more palatable to have someone who is described as liberal and who is being repressed." She insists that women from all parts of the society have been assaulted by the current military regime.
Said recalls women being arrested during protests organized by liberal groups late last year. "The women were harassed while being detained and after being detained the police took and drove them out into the desert, dumped them there and told them to make their way back home," she said.
Public Assembly Restricted
A protest law restricting the right to public assembly signed in late November by interim President Adly Mansour has given the Interior Ministry wide discretionary powers over protests, including the use of firearms against peaceful protesters. Protesters convicted of breaking the law can face up to five years in prison and fines of $14,513.
Large numbers of the young women arrested since July 2013 are students, some as young as 15, Said told Women's eNews. Since they are minors, they are being detained in juvenile centers but they are still going through the same kind of sexual abuse, torture and harsh treatments meted out to adults.
Egypt's Queens: Imprisoned's data--based on personal anecdotes collected through its member network--include stories of what women have suffered in detention.
In a Feb. 1 post, the site tells the story of Dr. Mervet Galeela, a radiologist, who "has been beaten and arrested while working at her hospital . . . for having a small Rabia symbol pinned to her clothes." The doctor is currently detained and under interrogation.
Rabia means fourth in Arabic and at first the sign was used to signal outrage at the events of Aug. 14, 2013, when thousands of men, women, children, infants and older people were killed in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square in Cairo during a pro-Morsi protest. Since then it has been adopted more generally as a symbol of resistance and protest against military regimes worldwide.
Along with the leaders of several other groups, British Egyptians for Democracy's Said said "trumped up" political charges are being used against detainees. She said mere possession of a camera, wearing badges that say "down with military rule in Egypt" or making the four-finger "Rabia sign" can lead to arrest and conviction.
In a Skype interview, the spokesperson for Egypt's Queens: Imprisoned, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, said female demonstrators on college campuses are being threatened by security and police officers. "'We are going to rape you and get you pregnant,' they say to the women," said the spokesperson.
Strongman Tactics Return
When Morsi was ousted by the Egyptian military last summer some liberal protest factions held back from decrying it as a military coup. But popular discontent with strongman tactics associated with the regime of ousted President Mubarak is now spreading.
Egypt's current president named a new prime minister on Feb. 25, a day after his predecessor, Hazem el-Beblawi, resigned abruptly without stating his reason. El-Beblawi was appointed after Morsi's ousting in July 2013.
Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, commander-in-chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and the minister of defense, is widely seen as the favorite to win the presidential election expected this year but not yet scheduled. In April 2012, al-Sisi, who led the anti-Morsi coup, defended the practice of submitting female protesters, those who demonstrated against the military in the aftermath of the Mubarak's ouster, to virginity tests. He argued they were carried out "to protect the girls from rape, and the soldiers and officers from accusations of rape."
A couple of weeks ago, an Egyptian woman, in a video posted by Rassd News Network on Youtube, added to the tableau of violence against women. She said she gave birth handcuffed to her hospital bed after being randomly arrested on her way to the hospital on Jan. 14. Dahab Hamdy, 18 years old, was eight months pregnant when she accidentally got caught up in an anti-coup protest. She faces charges of taking part in an illegal protest, rioting and disrupting the polling process.
Earlier this month, Amnesty International called for the release of three women arrested on Nov. 12, 2013, after clashes erupted on the campus of Mansoura University between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood.
"They are facing fabricated and illegitimate charges simply for exercising their rights," Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy Middle East and North Africa program director at Amnesty International, said in a press statement.
In a statement on their website, the rights group said: "The authorities have displayed a brazen disregard for the right to peaceful assembly in recent months and have sought to clamp down on any form of dissent with a restrictive new protest law." After four adjournments, the trial for the three women is now scheduled for March 28.
Earlier, the Ministry of Interior denied the allegations of arbitrary arrests and torture in jail since the protest law was issued in November, Ahram Online reported Feb. 12. The Egyptian online publication said that 16 human rights organizations are demanding "swift investigations into what they described as "increasing and shocking allegations of torture and sexual assaults against those detained at police stations since 25 January."
Students' Families Recount Abuse
The London-based Arab Organization for Human Rights said in a Feb. 10 press statement that it had received complaints from the families of 12 students imprisoned in Egypt. "Families reported that the girls were assaulted, tortured, sexually harassed and had their Islamic head covers removed by security and police officers following their arrest. The girls were also subjected to virginity tests several times at Nasr police station in addition to being tortured there before being transferred," the statement said.
Said, the spokesperson for British Egyptians for Democracy, said women who are victimized in detention can be blamed and stigmatized for the rape and other sexual abuses they suffer. That makes it hard to track what's happening. The same stigma and rejection is even worse for men, making those stories even harder to document.
Women Against the Coup is a group that belongs to the National Alliance Supporting Legitimacy, which describes itself as an Islamist coalition. However, Alaa Hosni, the group's spokesperson, said not all of its members are Islamists.
Hosni's group has documented 1,500 cases of abuse against female detainees since Morsi's ouster in July 2013. The number is considered low due to the difficulty of tracking the incidents in the context of pressures and intimidations by security forces, Hosni said in a Skype interview this week. She said the group has documented 150 cases of women who are currently detained.
Among them, 30 women have been subjected to a pregnancy test and around five were subjected to a virginity test. Hosni has heard rumors about women getting pregnant after being raped in detention, but so far she cannot confirm or refute them. She could not provide an estimate of the number of women and girls who have been missing or kidnapped since the past summer.
Hajer Naili is a New York-based reporter for Women's eNews. She has worked for several radio stations and publications in France and North Africa and specializes in Middle East and North Africa women in Islam.
There is no guarantee that women will be better protected. Omar Ahmed, general coordinator for the Global Coalition for the Egyptian Women's Union, based in Cairo, said in a phone interview. "The Constituent Assembly only has five women out of 50. There is no representation of women who have been [demonstrating] in Tahrir Square or the younger generation of women. There is no guarantee that women's rights can be protected."
Women's groups claim that without fair representation, their voices could be drowned out by the din of Egypt's economic and security woes.
The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, also based in the capital, posted an open letter on its website in early September calling for women to be one-third of the assembly.
The organization said the lack of female representation on such an important legislative committee was yet another means to exclude women from political participation, a practice it says was also employed by the government of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader driven from power in July by mass protests backed by the military.
Morsi supporters, meanwhile, say all human rights are now in peril.
Since security forces cleared out the two pro-Morsi sit-ins in the capital and killed hundreds of demonstrators across the country, authorities have been cracking down on Brotherhood leadership. They have arrested numerous Brotherhood members and supporters, including around 240 women who are still being held, said journalist Mostafa Al Khateeb, who works at the flagship newspaper of the group's political wing.
Killings and Rights Violations
"For two months, we have seen thousands of Egyptians killed by the military and police forces," said Al Khateeb over the phone. "This has never happened before in such numbers." He added that the right to stage peaceful sit-ins and protests has also been violated. "Now whenever we have these protests police forces attack. I think human rights have deteriorated to a level that is unprecedented."
This has forced Morsi supporters into hiding.
"Nowadays, I'm not staying in my home," Al Khateeb said. Saying many are shaving their beards, which might mark them as Morsi supporters, he added: "They are going into hiding to continue their peaceful activities. There are tens and hundreds of people being arrested from their homes."
In the latest arrest, security forces detained on Sept. 17 a Brotherhood senior communications official, Gehad el-Hadad, whose resume includes a stint at the Clinton Foundation, established by President Bill Clinton, The New York Times reported.
Under the Morsi government, women were less than 2 percent of the country's lower house of parliament before it was dissolved, versus around 12 percent in 2010 under former President Hosni Mubarak, the military strongman who was driven from power in by a popular uprising in two years ago.
The last Constituent Assembly, responsible for drafting the 2012 constitution thrown out by the military in July, had just five women out of 100 members. All five women, and numerous others, eventually quit the committee following sharp criticism over the group's efforts to rush the drafting process.
The Brotherhood's strongest show of hostility to women's rights came in March, when it condemned the United Nation's latest report on ending violence against women, saying it was "un-Islamic" and put family values at risk.
One female member of the constitution-drafting Constituent Assembly is Hoda Elsadda, co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum and a board director for the Global Fund for Women.
She told The Daily News Egypt that her primary concern is finding ways of putting an end to discrimination, regardless of race, gender or religion, as well as stopping torture at the hands of authorities.
Vivian Thabet, the women's rights program director for CARE Egypt, says she knows of Elsaada's work, adding that she is well-equipped to represent Egypt's women. The other four female assembly members include: the National Council of Motherhood and Childhood's Azza El Ashmawy, the National Council for Womens Mervat El Talawi, the National Council for Human Rights' Mona Zu El Fakar and Industrial Chambers committee representative Abla Mohey El Deen.
"I am disappointed with the number [of female members] but I am really proud of the quality," Thabet said in a phone interview. "Because I believe that most of [those chosen] are very close to women's issues and concerns."
Or
unjustly held in
prisons
No comments:
Post a Comment