Region | Egypt
'Mob attack' on women turns into political fight
An alleged mob attack on women during last week's Islamic holiday has escalated into a political fight involving President Hosni Mubarak's government.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 November 4, 2006
Cairo: An alleged mob attack on women during last week's Islamic holiday has escalated into a political fight involving President Hosni Mubarak's government.
Witnesses accuse police of doing nothing to protect the women as they walked on a downtown street, and democracy activists have cited the controversy as a sign that Egypt is mismanaged and corrupt.
But the government has accused the bloggers who publicised the incident of defaming the country, and some police officials have said there is no evidence that anything happened.
A handful of internet bloggers, who said they either witnessed or spoke with eyewitnesses in downtown Cairo the nights of October 23 and 24, reported that women of all ages and styles of dress were attacked by crowds of men and boys who groped them and tore their clothes, trying to remove them.
Some women wore headscarves or full Islamic veils and others were with their families, the bloggers said. "Anything that moves and smells like a female was attacked," said Wael Abbas, a democracy activist, blogger and eyewitness, who published photographs of the alleged attacks on his blog.
Crowds of people filled Cairo's streets on those nights to celebrate the beginning of Eid Al Fitr, the three-day holiday that marks Ramadan's end.
But Interior Ministry officials, quoted on condition of anonymity in the Egyptian press, said they had received no complaints of such attacks, and dismissed the controversy.
"We should close the file on disparaging rumours," said one police official quoted in Al Ahram, Egypt's biggest government daily.
The government has given no other official comment.
But an editorial in Rose Al Yousuf, the staunch pro-government daily, on Tuesday carried the headline: "To what extent are they just defaming Egyptians?" The author singled out Abbas for condemnation, accusing him of fabricating a "sexual revolution downtown".
Opposition newspapers and activists have seized on the incident to broadly criticise Mubarak's government for a long series of grievances.
A similar outcry occurred after a ferry sank in the Red Sea in February, killing more than 1,000 mostly poor labourers.
"Nothing amazes me in Egypt lately ... but what happened during Eid took me back to sad surprises," wrote Sahar Al Mougy, a female novelist and activist, in the independent daily Al Masry Al Youm on Monday.
While low-level harrasment of women is common in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, crime and assault reports are rare and police are pervasive usually on the streets in large numbers.
Some criticised the police for allegedly being more concerned with protecting Mubarak and his circle of allies than ordinary citizens, while others attacked Mubarak directly.
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