Classe

fyeahafrica:

Women of Tahrir: Frustration at revolution’s failures

It was a photograph that shocked the world - an Egyptian military policeman beating a protester in a hijab with sticks and dragging her along the street so that her clothes were torn open. It seemed to symbolise the vulnerability of women in a society that has changed little since last year’s revolution.

Many Egyptian women felt they had few rights or protections under President Hosni Mubarak, but the sense of liberation after he fell raised many women’s hopes.

Although they were in the front line alongside men during the revolution, a year on there is a clear sense of disappointment felt by many women.

The woman in that photo was taking part in a sit-in near Tahrir Square in December when the military police attacked the protesters.

Local human rights watchdogs accused the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), currently ruling Egypt, of systematically targeting women in the square to make them think twice before taking to the street again.

This wasn’t the first time women had been violently mistreated by the military police.

A month earlier a similar thing happened to Nada Zatouna, an independent filmmaker who was filming clashes between protesters and the police near Tahrir Square when she was attacked and arrested.

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classe: remember, to a first attempt of revolution should always follow a second.

(via comradewasser)