Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Cairo Eid – No Happy Endings

This is the most appalling thing I have read in a while. Rantings of a Sand Monkey helps break the silence:

The story is as follows for those of you who didn't hear about it: It was the first day of Eid, and a new film was opening downtown. Mobs of males gatherd trying to get in, but when the show was sold out, they decided they will destroy the box office.

After accomplishing that, they went on what can only be described as a sexual frenxy: They ran around grabbing any and every girl in sight, whether a niqabi, a Hijabi or uncoverd. Whether egyptian or foreigner. Even pregnant ones. They grabbed them, molested them, tried to rip their cloths off and rape them, all in front of the police, who didn't do shit. The good people of downtown tried their best to protect the girls. Shop owners would let the girls in and lock the doors, while the mobs tried to break in. Taxi drivers put the girls in the cars while the mobs were trying to break the glass and grab the girls out. It was a disgusting pandamonium of sexual assaults that lasted for 5 houres from 7:30 PM to 12:30 am, and it truns my stomach just to think about it.

I called my father when I heard of that happening, and he informed me that he didn't hear of it at all. They watched Al Jazeerah, CNN, flipped through opposition newspapers, and nothing. Nada. Nobody mentioned it. As if it didn't happen.

But it did.

The bloggers available downtown documented the whole thing, and provided pictures of it as well. Reading their accounts I can't help by feel my heart being torn on what the people of the country has turned to.
Read the rest here.

I can understand why the Egyptian Authorities would exert pressure on the Egyptian press not to publish these incidents but where is the western press? The silence from the press and international women’s group is positively deafening; which is one reason why I disassociated myself with the feminist movement years ago.

If equality before the law was good enough for me, I would accept no less for any other sister, but apparently my fellow western sisters are positively cowed when faced with Islamic clerics and entrenched misogyny. It’s far easier to gang up on the Pope.

Oh yeah, so much for the "uncovered meat" theory of rape.

1 comment:

Josh said...

Thank you! I have been saying this for years and every time I am rebuffed. The feminist movement doesn't care about anything but itself. For years now they have abandoned their sisters in these muslim nations. So much for "I am woman hear me roar!"