CAIRO: The Egyptian press, and particularly the independent newspapers, highlighted two main topics related to the Islamic feast that occurred last week. The Eid holiday, has in recent years, turned into a nightmare for women in the country, who are afraid to go out during the three days to avoid waves of sexual harassment by young males, where dozens of crazed men have attacked groups of women, assaulting and harassing them. The Eid celebrations that follow the Holy Month of Ramadan witnesses huge crowds of people out in the streets celebrating and women have become subjected to sexual molestation in the past. This Eid, local Egyptian press again reported waves of collective sexual harassment against girls in gardens, parks and the Giza Zoo during the second day of Eid, and also reported security efforts to deter the harassers by pushing them away from the girls after a number of them fainted due to the large crowds of young males surrounding them. The press also reported similar cases of harassment on the first day of Eid, however it said that the second day witnessed more and worse cases. Security tried to disperse the harassers using sticks and belts, Al-Youm al-Saba'a reported that it observed a “disaster by all standards at Al Fustat park, where collective harassment broke out against girls,” giving an example of some 20 young men gathered around two girls “amid a state a state of screaming and wailing their distress.” Cases of degeneration did not appear in the crimes of harassment only, but extended to the taking drugs at Fustat garden in the absence of noticeable security. “Boys aged around 15 gathered in the garden and started to smoke freely and happily despite the new law imposed by the government starting from the 10th of September to ban smoking in public governmental institutions, sporting clubs, parks, gardens, schools, hospitals, public transportation in all of the Egyptian Governorates,” the newspaper reported. Another incident was also highlighted by local media; the disappearance of Ahmed Eid, the Egyptian activist and the member of the Democratic Front Party, who was said to be detained by security on the first day of Eid. Reports also covered the protests and human rights organizations' statements that followed the disappearance of the activist. The Youth Movement, 6th of April, organized in cooperation with the members of the National Assembly for Change, a protest on Sunday in front of the Bureau of the Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, demanding the need to release the activist Eid, who had been arrested by the SSI. The group of protesters condemned the policy of security in dealing with political activists and urged the Ministry of Interior to “immediately release the activist, as he was detained right after his friend Amr Salah was detained for 40 hours by unknown persons rumored to be security personnel.” The members of the movement told local media they will continue their sit-in until the release of Ahmed Eid, and Ahmed Maher, coordinator of the Movement said the movement “would not stop the protest if the activist was not released.” On the other hand, a number of human rights organizations condemned the policy of security in dealing with political activists. The Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies issued a statement expressing concern about the exposure of some activists to incidents of enforced disappearance and abduction. The center called on the Egyptian authorities to “reveal the place of the detention of the activist Ahmed Eid and the reasons for his detention and to allow him to contact his lawyer and to develop safeguards against torture and ill-treatment.” The center appealed for the immediate intervention of the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders in the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the organization itself and the need to call on the government to immediately reveal the whereabouts of Ahmed Eid and to prevent endangering his life. BM
