Cairo's Tahrir Square once symbolized the hope Egyptians felt when they overthrew Hosni Mubarak and began building a democracy. But this iconic rallying point for protesters has today also come to symbolize the terror and contempt women increasingly face since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power and the country descended into turmoil.
Assaults and gang rapes of women in Tahrir have become so common the last two years that the square is now a no-go zone for women, especially after dark. There are no official statistics. But according to an account in The Times on Tuesday, at least 18 incidents were reported on Jan. 25, the second anniversary of the revolution, during a demonstration against the new Islamist-led government.
Six women were hospitalized, one was stabbed in the genitals and another required a hysterectomy. Hania Moheeb, 42, a journalist, told how a group of men had surrounded her in Tahrir, stripped off her clothes and violated her for almost an hour.
The scandal is not just that such violence happens. The women are being blamed by conservative Islamists for bringing the assaults on themselves. As Adel Abdel Maqsoud Afifi, a police general and lawmaker, said, "Sometimes, a girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions."
Such twisted thinking is not only hateful in itself but is designed to keep women, who were at the front lines of the revolution, out of politics and power. If President Mohamed Morsi, his Islamist-led government and opposition political leaders do not speak out unambiguously and repeatedly to condemn the attacks and also bring assailants to justice, they are complicit in the crimes.
In the Mubarak era, the omnipresent police kept sexual violence out of prominent public sites and public view. Since the police withdrew from Tahrir Square and other places, sexual assaults have grown bolder and more violent. Attackers are also enabled by certain extreme religious orthodoxies and government policy. This month, when a United Nations conference adopted guidelines for ending violence against women, the Brotherhood condemned the statement, saying it would undermine Islamic ethics and lead to the disintegration of society.
Because Egypt is a leader in the Arab world, what it does and says about women and their relationship to Islam matters a lot. The Brotherhood says it is committed to the rule of law and equal rights, but unless those concepts are applied in ways that let women live their lives safely and as true partners and citizens alongside men, they are just slogans and a surefire guarantee of persistent hostility and controversy in a country that can ill afford either.
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