Egyptian activists released a brutally frank video on Friday, using images recorded during the mass sexual assault of a woman last week in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to urge volunteers to join their campaign against attacks during demonstrations.
The video, created by the filmmakers Aida Elkashef and Salam Yousry, uses disturbing overhead images of a crowd of men swarming around a woman being assaulted just out of view to explain the work of Op Anti-SH, one of two new initiatives to combat the sexual harassment and rape of female protesters.
While the video includes no graphic images, and shows that volunteers did eventually manage to help the woman to a safe location â€" near the KFC, where there was a field hospital for injured protesters during the 18-day sit-in in 2011 â€" its detailed description of the woman’s assault stunned some viewers. Activists argued that the events described in the video are depressingly routine, two years after the Egyptian revolution began.
Despite th! at reality, the Op Anti-SH activists vow to continue their struggle.
In a video interview on the initiative published on Saturday, one of the women involved in Op Anti-SH, Engy Ghozlan, said: “This is our country and we will not be silent about sexual harassment, not the type that happens to us every day, nor tat of Tahrir. It will end, it cannot continue because we believe Egypt deserves better.â€
In Egypt there is no revolution without the participation of women or without their security.
