Juan Cole & Ahram Online / Jadaliyya – 2011-12-21 15:59:24
http://www.juancole.com/2011/12/egyptian-women-rally-against-police-brutality.html
Egyptian Women Rally against Police Brutality
Juan Cole
(December 21, 2011) — Thousands of women rallied near Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo on Tuesday, protesting the mistreatment meted out to women protesters by security forces. In some instances, the police had pulled up the woman’s dress and stomped on her.
Indeed, women rallied all over Egypt, according to the Arabic press. A march was held in Alexandria in solidarity with with the young women who were attacked by police in Tahrir Square and insisting that women have the right to demonstrate.
Aljazeera English has video:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton roundly condemned the violence against female protesters. She said, “This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people….”
Likewise, students held a rally at Asyut to protest the bad treatment of demonstrators in front of the cabinet on Saturday.
Tuesday began with an early morning raid on Tahrir Square by aggressive security police trying to push the demonstrators out permanently.
Euronews has video:
The Egyptian protesters consist of two main groups, 1) leftist students and their worker allies, and 2) the Muslim religious parties. The latter are doing well in parliamentary elections. The military council is cracking down hard on the left, and the more electorally successful Brotherhood is not standing up for them.
Egypt’s NAC Calls for ‘Friday of Regaining Honor’
Ahram Online / Jadaliyya
CAIRO (Dec 21 2011) — The National Association for Change (NAC) has called on all Egyptians to demonstrate in Tahrir Square and in different parts of the country protesting the “crime committed near the Cabinet by the military,” referring to violence against women specifically in the recent attack on Tahrir Square.
The NAC’s statement called on all Egyptians to march peacefully to “regain Egypt’s honor.” The statement emphasised the important role women played in the January 25 Revolution, adding that in return women’s rights have been ignored since the revolution and undermined by the military council and Islamist parties.
The statement called for mass demonstrations to condemn “the brutal crime committed against Egypt’s most noble women” adding that the revolution, which held to the slogan “Hold your head up high, you are Egyptian,” will no longer accept that an Egyptian woman or man is insulted.
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