Thousands of women massed in Tahrir Square here on Tuesday afternoon and marched to a journalists’ syndicate and back in a demonstration that grew by the minute into an extraordinary expression of anger at the treatment of women by the military police as they protested against continued military rule.
Many held posters of the most sensational image of violence over the last weekend: a group of soldiers pulling the abaya off a prone woman to reveal her blue bra as one raises a boot to kick her. The picture, circulated around the world, has become a rallying point for activists opposed to military rule, though cameras also captured soldiers pulling the clothes off other women.
The march, guarded by a cordon of male protesters, was a surprising turn. In Egypt, as in other countries swept by the revolts of the Arab Spring, women played important roles, raising hopes that broader social and political rights would emerge along with more accountable governments. But with the main popular focus on preparing for elections and protesting the military’s continued hold on power, women here had grown less politically visible.
The women’s protest came on the fifth day of violent clashes between Egyptian soldiers and protesters. The severity of the military’s defense of its hold on power, even as the newly elected Parliament begins to take shape, has restored a degree of unity that had been missing among the civilian political factions, liberal and Islamist, since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
On Monday, Gen. Adel Emara of the ruling military council denied that soldiers had been responsible for any violence or abuses over the weekend, portraying them as victims of provocateurs. He stopped a journalist before she could open a newspaper carrying the photograph of the so-called blue-bra woman.
“Before you open the newspaper, fold it; I know what I’m talking about,” General Emara said. “Yes, this scene took place, and we’re investigating it. But let’s look at the whole picture and see the circumstances the picture was taken in, and we will announce the complete truth.”
The general dropped the warm, avuncular approach he and others in the council had taken toward the news media, chastising journalists as though they were naughty schoolchildren. “When you want to speak, tell me to stop talking!” he said sarcastically. “I didn’t allow for talking,” he said at another point. “If you talk, I’ll kick you out.”
He continued, without explaining, “Don’t take only this shot, you or any other, and cite it to prove that violence was used.”
Though General Emara boasted briefly of the military’s success in delivering a transition to democracy, he made no reference to the military’s recently formed, and almost immediately disbanded, civilian advisory council. The council suspended its activities until the military stopped the violence and apologized; about a third of its roughly 30 members have quit.
So far, the military council has resisted calls from the United States, the United Nations and a newly united front of Islamist and liberal political leaders to stop the violence, which has left more than a dozen people dead.
General Emara insisted that the military had never used violence against peaceful protesters.
“The armed forces and the police pledged not to use violence against protesters actively or even verbally,” he said. Instead, he said, the protesters had deliberately provoked soldiers into clashes as part of a plot “to destroy the state.”
Egypt will never fall, he declared, “as long as it has heroes from the armed forces.” And rather than apologize for the military’s violence, he threw back the challenge to the Egyptian news media: “Why don’t you talk about the excessive use of violence by the other side?”
“The military council has always warned against the abuse of freedom,” he said. Excessive freedom, he said, “leads to chaos and the fall of the state, instead of the fall of the regime.”
Protest leaders said his remarks were the clearest sign yet of the depth of the military’s determination to hold on to power even after the new Parliament is seated early next year.
“We are definitely now living in a military coup,” said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, a young liberal organizer. “And the whole world should know.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق