Tel-Chai Nation

As the demonstrations in Egypt resume once again, more reports of rapes have surfaced. One of the most recent victims was a Dutch woman:

A journalist from the Netherlands has been raped by a group of men while covering the uprisings in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the same location where CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten by protesters in 2011, shortly after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

The attack was confirmed by the Dutch embassy in Cairo, who issued a statement [3] reading, "A Dutch woman of 22 was attacked in Tahrir Square on Friday evening. The Netherlands Embassy has assisted the victim, and after receiving emergency treatment in a Cairo hospital she was repatriated to the Netherlands in the company of family. The victim has cooperated with an investigation started by the Egyptian authorities. In the interest of the privacy of the victim, no further information will be given."

The chaotic moments leading up to the attack were reportedly captured in a video currently posted online [warning: graphic content [4]], in which a blond woman is seen being overpowered by a swarm of male protesters. Millions had gathered in the public space to demand the removal of Mohamed Morsi as Egypt's president.

News of the violent sexual assault that followed was first reported by Dina Zakaria, a journalist for Egypt 25 news channel. Writing on her Facebook page, Zakaria said [5] that the woman "was raped by men who dub themselves revolutionists" and that her "condition is severe and she is hospitalized."

It gets worse:

"Mobs sexually assaulted and in some cases raped at least 91 women in Tahrir Square ... amid a climate of impunity," HRW, which is based in New York, said in a statement.

It cited figures from the Egyptian Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, which runs a hotline for victims of sexual assault, showing that there were 46 such attacks against women on Sunday, 17 on Monday and 23 on Tuesday. [...]

Several women required surgical intervention after the attacks, some were "beaten with metal chains, sticks, and chairs, and attacked with knives," HRW said.

The government response has been to "downplay the extent of the problem or to seek to address it through legislative reform alone," whereas what is needed is for attackers to be brought to justice, HRW said.

They're not even trying to address it through legislation, because sharia puts the kibosh on even that. If these were anti-Morsi protestors who committed the obscene crimes, then it's hard to sympathise with any who would dare to assault women, making them no better than Morsi's own army of darkness. This is basically a case of Islam vs. Islam, with neither side knowing what they really want. And if they can only think of raping women who join the protest movement, then they may have made their beds in terms of freedom, because they wouldn't respect that of the fairer sex.

Labels: Egypt, islam, jihad, misogyny, Netherlands, New York, United States