Female journalists covering Egypt unrest sexually assaulted
A group of men dragged them towards tahrir square :
EGYPT: Two female foreign journalists on Thursday described harrowing
sexual assaults carried out by crowds or police as they tried to cover
demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy said she was sexually
assaulted by police during hours under detention after taking part in
protests on the sprawling square that has become a landmark of the Arab
Spring. “Besides beating me, the dogs of (central security forces)
subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever,” Eltahawy said on her
Twitter account.
“5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my
genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my
trousers,” she said.
“My left arm and right hand are broken (according) to xrays,” she
said, posting pictures of herself in casts. Earlier Eltahawy, an
award-winning journalist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues
based in New York, tweeted that she had been released after having been
beaten and arrested in the interior ministry building.
Later, a French journalist working for public television channel
France 3, said she had been violently beaten and sexually assaulted
while covering the protests.
Caroline Sinz told AFP that she and her cameraman, Salah Agrabi, had
been confronted in a road leading from Tahrir to the interior ministry,
the scene of days of deadly clashes between police and protesters
demanding democratic change.
“We were filming in Mohammed Mahmud street when we were mobbed by
young people who were about 14 or 15,” said Sinz.
AFP
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