Egyptian socialist and lesbian activist Sarah Hegazi, 30, committed suicide in Canada. His most recent Instagram photo showed his mendacity under a blue sky with the words “Heaven is more beautiful than earth. I need heaven, not earth. “
Hegazi had been living in exile in Canada since 2018 after fleeing Egypt following his imprisonment in 2017 for raising a rainbow flag at Mashrou ‘Leila’s concert in Cairo: The group’s lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is gay . Her 3 months in prison and torture for “promoting sexual deviance and debauchery” left her with a severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Hamed Sinno made an upbeat song through Hegazi’s last words on Instagram.
In a year marked by historic anniversaries of women’s rights, women’s safety is the greatest danger in the world and is endangered in Egypt under the rule of existing Sunnis and the general who has become President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, supported through Saudi Arabia. Hegazi has joined thousands of women who have been suffering from the dictatorship of the Egyptian Islamic army since June 2014.
A 2013 UN report on women found that 99. 3% of women are sexually harassed in Egypt. A Reuters survey of women’s problem experts has made Cairo the world’s most harmful city for women.
“There has been an increase in domestic violence and femicide; 30 cases have been reported in just two months,” says Rana Allam, former editor of the Daily News Egypt (DNE) newspaper in Cairo, a commentator on political issues in the Middle East and Huguy rights. who is Senior Editorial Advisor and Director of Strategic Communications for the International Civil Action Network (ICAN) and the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL). “A husband pulled his wife off a balcony because he had tested positive for Covid-19. A woguy left her fiancé, mutilated her by throwing acid in her face. A man killed his mother, wife and daughters so he could marry someone else. A man who refuses to divorce his wife for monetary reasons rapes her to end her immorality: she is killed by the rapist. And the list goes on. “
Allam explains how monetary stress, emerging unemployment, excessive heat waves, and socioeconomic situations have intensified the violence unfeded by men who oppose more than culturally tolerated levels.
Amnesty International reports that in 2018, the Egyptian government arrested more than 113 people for fees such as “satire, tweet, for football clubs, reports of sexual harassment, film editing, agreements or interviews. “”Egyptian pre-trial detention centres are full of influential people on social media, lawyers, activists, doctors, journalists, women who report violations or denounce unfair rules. Incarceration and torture are justified by accusations of “undermining the circle of family values of Egyptian society. “
When a teenage girl posted in TikTok, she raped as a group, was arrested with her attackers and accused of “promoting debauchery. “It was only after the Egyptian Personal Rights Initiative, which protects basic rights and freedoms in Egypt, raised questions about the charges. , the woman transferred to a rape victim centre.
In July, the government accused five influential social media youth of ethical violations for TikTok and Instagram, and were sentenced to two years in prison and fined $18,000.
When 50 women turned to social media to denounce sexual harassment and rape over the years through Ahmed Bassam Zaki, son of an Egyptian elite, his colleagues at the American University of Cairo confronted him. The government took no action until the Egyptian National Council of Women (NCW) filed a report calling for an investigation through the prosecution’s workplace: Zaki was arrested; only women from elite families obtained information, while other women who complained to Zaki were harassed and even arrested.
The former army intelligence director, defense minister and general who now serves as Egypt’s sixth president, the motto of the el-Sissi crusade “Viva Egypt” aimed to eliminate poverty by calling on the personal sector to reduce its profit margins. The sector is being stifled by the overall economic take-over of the military and by the progression of the chain of origin and the distribution of products at reduced costs in the hotel, construction, telecommunications, computer and e-commerce sectors, including convenience stores.
And all this with Egypt’s complete conservative middle class.
Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa, writes: “The Egyptian government has made it very clear that anyone who demands situations in which the official narrative is seriously punished. “Amnesty reports that under the guise of the Covid-19 campaign, 37 hounds are arrested and media representatives defying Covid-19 government reports face imprisonment. in Egypt were higher than reported. At least 10 doctors were arrested and others warned not to make percentage checks on the management of the pandemic government.
“Due to government deficiencies, many doctors died because they didn’t have the equipment to treat Covid-19,” Allam says.
Virginity disguised as state-sanctioned rape?
Perched between 3 continents and two seas, Egypt has the tip of the Nile basin that winds through 10 countries before reaching Cairo. evils and injustices, while its basic president justifies mandatory virginity tests for prisoners as a means to protect women from rape, and soldiers and infantry officers from rape charges.
According to Amnesty International, women who refuse to undergo virginity testing face prostitution rates: beatings, electric shocks, clothing-free records while being photographed through male soldiers. Ultimately, women are forced to undergo “virginity checks,” as is the case with two of TikTok’s influencers imprisoned.
Many see virginity evidence as a state-authorized violation, and protesters arrested in 2013 in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (liberation) attest to this. Sexual harassment was criminalized in 2014, but Egyptian courts rarely convict men. Marital rape is endemic and culturally tolerated.
During the 2013 protests, basic organizations and teams such as Black Block and Tahrir Bodyguards (which protect women protesters from sexual harassment and group rape) and HARASSmap (which provides routes for women across Cairo) protected women from the cultural norms of female harassment.
“Today all the members of those teams are killed or imprisoned,” says Rana Allam.
Sunnis are the largest branch, 85%, of the 1. 9 billion strong Muslim beliefs, and more than 90% of the Muslims in Egypt. The exploitation of women through the el-Sissi regime contradicts the famous farewell sermon of the Prophet Muhammad: “My farewell recommendation (wasiyya) for you is to treat women with kindness because in fact they are your partners and your faithful helpers. “emphasizing. ” Your maximum productive of you are those that are the maximum productive for your women. An Islamic coach says: “An honorable man treats women with honor and respect, and only a despicable user treats them badly. ” The Prophet said : “Do not hit the maidens of God” and “Do not hit or insult them. “
Last August, Egypt’s top Sunni Muslim authority, Al-Azhar, called for serious sanctions against sexual harassers and decreed that a woman’s clothes never justify harassment, according to a CNN report.
The Egyptian Centre for women’s rights (ECWR), an independent, non-partisan and non-partisan civilian NGO that helps Egyptian women to all rights and equality with men, called on Parliament to tighten “penalties for domestic violence against women and promote the publication of a unified law to combat violence against women. “
You can learn the motto “Long live Egypt” if all Egyptian citizens are treated with honor and respect.
I promise to make sure women have one or two seats at the table and are on the “menu” of all negotiations. I am the founder of Global Cadence PR / Social Media
I promise to make sure women have one or two seats at the table and are on the “menu” of all negotiations. I am the founder of the consulting firm Global Cadence PR / Social Media Marketing, social business advisor and member of the board of directors of an NGO. I participate in the Working Group of the 2000 Forum on Women, Democracy, Human Rights and Security (WDHRS) to ensure that women are also presented as speakers and experts on global meetings and occasions. assistance focused on the equity and rights of women and women in the United States, Zimbabwe, Armenia, Nigeria and Syria, among others.