Egypt’s el-Sissi visits sex assault victim

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/egypt-el-sissi-apologizes-to-sexual-attack-victim/2014/06/11/0eab2220-f155-11e3-b140-bd7309109588_story.html

FILE -- In this Monday, Aug. 20, 2012 file photo, an Egyptian youth, trailed by his friends, gropes a woman crossing the street with her friends in Cairo, Egypt. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt’s newly sworn-in president, has apologized in person to a woman who was sexually assaulted by a mob during weekend celebrations marking his inauguration. Several women were assaulted during the Sunday, June 8, 2014 inaugural festivities. (Ahmed Abd El Latif, El Shorouk Newspaper, File/Associated Press)

CAIRO — Bearing red flowers, Egypt’s newly sworn-in president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Wednesday apologized in person to a woman who was sexually assaulted by a mob during weekend celebrations marking his inauguration, a gesture that is likely to bolster the career soldier’s popularity.

Sexual harassment has long been a problem in Egypt, but assaults have increased dramatically both in frequency and ferocity in the three years since the ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Activists welcomed the gesture by el-Sissi, but said it would prove empty if not followed up by concrete steps toward preventing such acts and punishing perpetrators.

State television showed a visibly moved el-Sissi visiting the woman in a Cairo hospital.

“I have come to tell you and every Egyptian woman that I am sorry. I am apologizing to every Egyptian woman,” el-Sissi, a former military chief who ousted the country’s first elected president nearly a year ago, said as he stood by the woman’s bed.

“Don’t be upset,” he told her.

Several women were assaulted during Sunday’s inaugural festivities in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the 2011 revolt that toppled Mubarak, which has also seen numerous mob sexual assaults during demonstrations held there since.

Sunday’s assaults coincided with el-Sissi starring in carefully choreographed ceremonies held at two of the capital’s most opulent presidential palaces and attended by hundreds of local and foreign dignitaries.

It is highly unusual for any senior official, let alone the president, to offer a public apology. El-Sissi, already seen by many Egyptians as a strong leader who can restore stability after three years of unrest, may win over even more supporters by taking a stand on the issue of sexual harassment and violence.

El-Sissi has advocated for a greater public role for women and praised their contribution to society and the economy. He pledged in his Sunday inauguration speech to “do everything I can” to ensure that women are fairly represented in the next parliament and in the executive branch.

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Activists welcomed the gesture by el-Sissi, but said it would prove empty if not followed up by concrete steps toward preventing such acts and punishing perpetrators.

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He pledged in his Sunday inauguration speech to “do everything I can” to ensure that women are fairly represented in the next parliament and in the executive branch.

Punishing the perps will be easy. Ensuring a fair % of women in the next parliament and the executive branch will be easy. Pakistan did it with quotas.

But "preventing such acts".. wow. That will be a slow process. Probably takes decades. Hopefully the activist types will give the man credit for getting the process started.

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I find that photograph incredibly depressing. We were speaking the other week here about sexual entitlement in the context of Elliot Rodger, and here you can see a similar sentiment -- our bodies as women are to some men not our own.