EGYPT: THE ATTACKS ON WOMEN WERE ALL ABOUT SEX AND RELIGION

EGYPT: SEX AND RELIGION BEHIND ATTACK, COLUMNIST SAYS

Cairo, 16 Nov. (AKI) - A leading commentator on Egypt's authorative Al-Ahram weekly has broken the virtual silence by the semi-official media over an incident of sexual aggression by groups of youths against women in central Cairo last month. Recalling that no investigation has been conducted into the incident during Eid al-Fitr [the end of Ramadan holiday], columnist Salama Ahmed Salama said "as a nation, let's admit we need to ask ourselves some questions."

"Any active security presence on the streets of the country is rare, except during protests, elections and around universities and public offices. Apathy has turned into a state of affairs, to the extent that chaos and indifference tarnish not only our streets but also our politics, economy, education and media" she wrote.

Eyewitness accounts of the attacks on 23-24 October first circulated on blogs and were then gradually picked up by local independent media and the foreign press. Eyewitnesses recounted how women, some of them veiled, had been chased by hordes of youths, who tried to rip their clothes off. Some sought refuge in shops but storekeepers in some cases closed their doors to them. Others, less fortunate, were surrounded, groped and had their garments torn.

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The Interior Ministry has denied the reports, saying no complaints or charges have been filed relating to such incidents. Police also broke up a rally in central Cairo on Tuesday, where activists, opposition supporters and womens groups protested the incident and the lack of intervention by the police.

"The mixture of political repression, social disenchantement and sexual frustration is a combustible one: and here we have teenagers exhibiting this kind of madness like those carried out against young women in down town Cairo"

Salama goes on to argue that to understand the aggression - unthinkable in a conservative Muslim society where women are not used to being approached by male strangers - one needs to look at the obsession of young Egyptian men with sex and religion.

"The mentality they have developed is one that sees women's bodies as the main battlefield between Islam and the West. The more our young men are under pressure, the more they want women to cover up, as if a sheet of fabric is the ultimate shield of Islamic identity."

"When we get to the point of blaming the women for having been sexually assaulted what else should we expect?" she asks.

However she does not let women off the hook, urging them to stay the course and resist a mentality that wants to limit them.

"They should assert themselves in public and social life and refuse to be pushed back into the days of the harem" Salam concludes.

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