The current events are flowing non stop from Egypt, that it is easy to forget what happened just a couple of days ago. Before the army overtaking the country from its elected officials the news talked about a festive-like protest in Tahrir square, the same place that was the anti Mubarack protest in the end of 2011.
Tahrir is also synonymous with the abuse of woman, especially foreign reporters. The fist case was of Lara Logan who has been not only sexually assaulted in the square during the joy that overtook the country when Mubarack was removed, but she was also beating and physically attacked.
Natasha Smith was yet another journalist that was sexually attacked in the square as well as the (now famous) Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda el Mahdi. Add to this the constant stream of reports by locals of the continues harassment by the army and the police (toward females) and you get one place you should not visit in Cairo – if you are a Western female.
Now the current story is of a Dutch young woman who was brutally assaulted in the square a couple of days ago, rushed to the hospital and later sent back to her country. The fact that there rapes do not stop is an indication that there is something deep within the current Egyptian society that is wrong, but the current trend makes it even worst – the “easy trigger” when it comes to foreigners, and while females are abused and attacked males are simply stabbed and killed.
As was the unfortunate case of Andrew Pochter from Maryland, who spent time in Egypt teaching children English, he was stabbed in Alexandria while watching a demonstration, he was not part of it, and he probably took a place of a spectator – mainly because he was an outsider. Someone grabbed the chance to stab and kill him, for the obvious reason of him not being Egyptian.
There are many signs that show the turning of the Egyptian society into a radical and non tolerant one, the extreme cases of the rapes and murders should be noted by those who thing of paying the country a visit.
