Last week, I mentioned that a friend had been robbed in Tahrir Square on Friday, January 25. Now I have the details and it wasn't as simple as I thought! On that day two female friends of mine were sexually harassed. One of them told me that many people gathered in what seemed to be an organised way to grab and corner them, blocking them out from the very crowded square. Was that a coincidence? I don't think so. We never had such a thing as ‘organised harassment', but now we do. Why does it only happen in anti-regime demonstrations? I guess no-one can answer that. My friend told me that one of the offenders carried a knife and, although he had his face hidden by a scarf, his eyes were showing and they were full of evil. She said he wasn't very close to her, which means he wasn't planning to touch her – he was there to protect the harassers and to make sure they got to do whatever they wanted. Is that organised or what? She was miraculously saved and the only thing I like about this story is the girl's reaction – when she got over the trauma she decided not to be passive and just let it go; instead, she went to the police on the following day. She didn't stop there, as she also went to the district attorney. In such situations, most females are afraid and worry about their reputation when they are victims. I believe being silent encourages criminals to commit the same crime over and over again. They must be caught and severely punished, then other offenders thinking of harassing an innocent victim might think twice about doing so. When you fight for a cause, you're not only standing up for yourself, but you're helping others too. On the same day, a 19-year old girl was gang-raped and stabbed in her organ. I don't know why this was not mentioned in the press. I believe people should be warned to take the necessary precautions. Nowadays, things are unbelievably bad – a taxi driver told me a story the other day that left me speechless. He was stopped by a couple and their son and they asked him to drive them from el-Omraniya in southern Giza to el-Nahda, which is a long way. Once they got into his taxi, the husband and wife started crying hysterically. As the driver tried to calm them down, the man told him their story. Their teenage daughter had left the home and gone to take a private lesson in their neighbourhood. She was supposed to return home at around 8pm but didn't. They called her several times on her cell phone but she didn't answer. Finally, she rang her father at 11pm and, when he answered, he heard a man's voice telling him that his daughter had been kidnapped and, if he didn't pay a ransom of LE40,000, she'd be raped and killed. For such a poor family, just the thought of raising this amount of money was scary. The man has a job that doesn't pay much and said that they didn't have any money at home. He went to the police and was told that it would take at least 25 days to locate the girl! They said it takes a long time to issue an order to have the mobile service provider trace the phone call. I don't know much about these things, but on television we see calls and the callers being traced in no time at all. However the police wanted the man to wait for 25 days. What was he supposed to tell the kidnappers? How was the family going to live all this time without knowing what was happening to the girl? How were they supposed to come up with this fortune to pay the kidnappers? Luckily, the man's neighbours and colleagues chipped in and together they raised LE18,000, slightly less than half of the money demanded. He begged the kidnappers and they agreed to accept that amount and instructed him to go to a bridge in a remote area, drop the money there and walk away without looking down, or else he would never see his daughter again. He followed their orders and, the following day, the daughter was dropped somewhere with her face covered with a mask, being ordered not to remove it for ten minutes. When she finally did, she didn't know where she was. She stopped an old man and asked him to make a call from his phone after telling him that she was lost. He told her that she was in el-Nahda and gave her the phone, and she called her father to come up and pick her up. Minutes later, the family stopped the taxi driver who told me the story. He said that the girl was frightened and her father told him that she had lost a lot of weight in those eight days. When they inquired about the way she was kidnapped, she said that an old woman riding a tok-tok (a small three-wheeled vehicle used as a taxi in poorer areas of town) asked her to help her alight. The woman was veiled and, as the girl offered her her hand, the woman grabbed her and exposed her to some kind of anaesthetic. The girl passed out and woke up to find herself in a dimmed room, where she was kept for the next eight days. The door was slightly opened three times a day to slide in some food and a bottle of water, but she didn't want to eat because she was so scared. I can't blame her. It must have been a terrifying experience. I really don't know what to say about harassment, rape and kidnapping. Things were never that bad in Egypt. I am totally convinced that this is organised, now that people don't have a special authority to protect them. Are we supposed to carry guns to defend ourselves or what? Excuse me, but in times like this I can't write about music. 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