There is no longer room for silence any more. In a country where women are often blamed for their sexual assault, the arrest of an Egyptian student has created hopes of changing attitudes.
In his report, published by the American New York Times, writer Declan Walsh said, "A flood of accusations on social media platforms focused on a 21-year-old Egyptian college student last week, after scores of girls accused him of harassment and sexual assault.
Within days, the organizers of the campaign launched against him said that the Instagram page had revealed 93 other victims, some as young as 13 years old, and many of the victims were his colleagues at the American University in Cairo.
The writer mentioned that the Cairo police arrested the student, Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a week ago from now in his house in a high-end suburb, 3 days after the Instagram page appeared. Rapid and public action was a notable shift for Egypt, where sexual harassment and assault became so common, and victims feared speaking out for fear of being blamed.
The issue has made headlines in Egypt and has become a hot topic on talk shows and social media platforms. By Tuesday, July 7, the state-run National Council for Women said it had received more than 400 complaints of various forms of violence against women since the outbreak of public anger and discontent, and local media had been largely supportive of Zaki's victims.
The author mentioned that the scholars at Al-Azhar University also expressed their support for the victims, as they issued a statement encouraging women to testify about sexual assault, and rejected any accusations against them that their clothing or behavior was the reason for their being attacked. "This represents a message for society stating that we need to change our culture. In eastern culture, some victims are afraid to speak because they feel shy, so we need to encourage them," said Al-Azhar University spokesperson Ahmed Barakat.
Sexual harassment is so widespread that a study published by the United Nations in 2013 revealed that almost all Egyptian women - about 99% of those surveyed - were victims of harassment.
"This move is a new step in a movement that has been built for years," the writer quoted quoting the feminist activist in Egypt, Mazen Hassan, as proud of that, but admitted that Egypt lags behind many countries with regard to protecting women's rights. Despite the criminalization of sexual harassment in 2014, conviction for rape remains very difficult.
According to the prosecutor, the criminal case against Zaki related to charges of rape, extortion and inappropriate assault was filed by 6 women. Zaki is also facing possible prosecution in Spain, where the Barcelona Business School - which he joined last year - announced that he had expelled him, and on Monday 6 July, he filed a criminal complaint against him to the Spanish police.
The Attorney General said that Zaki denied most of the charges against him, and the broadcaster Amr Adib reported that Zaki's father had denied his son's accusations against him.
After graduating from the American International School, one of the most prestigious high schools in Cairo, Zaki enrolled at the American University in Cairo starting in 2016, when fellow students say he soon became known for his bad behavior with women.
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A post shared by Reporting AHMED BASSEM ZAKI ⚠️ (@assaultpolice) on Jul 10, 2020 at 2:09 pm PDT
According to several accounts published last week, Zaki defrauded several ways for women to obtain their phone numbers, as he sometimes claimed to belong to social clubs that did not exist in reality. He also pressured women to send intimate photos that he later used to force them to have sex with him, as he threatened them to send the pictures to their parents if they refused.
In the words of the Attorney General, Zaki was "winning the sympathy of the girls, also claiming that he is in a crisis, then luring them to his home in a secluded place where they are sexually assaulting them."
"None of these women knew each other, but their stories were very similar," said Egyptian writer Sabah Khudair, who is in the United States and who wrote about sexual assault and listened to testimonies from several women about Zaki.
However, the size of the charges was not clear until after the Instagram page appeared in public in early June, so dozens of new accounts were revealed, many of which were supported by copies of the audio and text messages Zaki sent to the women.
Khudair explained that there were many accusations against Zaki from his university colleagues, and the bomb of silence exploded after the official complaint of sexual harassment against him in 2018.
For its part, American University spokeswoman Rehab Saad refused to discuss the complaint lodged against Zaki, citing confidentiality concerns, as she only stated that he left the university in 2018 without completing his testimony. She added that the university follows a "zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and it fully complies with the Egyptian law on sexual harassment, as is the case with other issues."
The issue of harassment periodically returns to the forefront of interest in Egypt. In June 2019, the Egyptian national team, Amr Warda, faced charges of sexual harassment, which led to the suspension of his participation with the team in the nations of Africa that were hosted by Egypt at the time, but after two days the player returned to the headquarters The establishment of the national team after pressure from other players, and the discontent intensified when the Egyptian football star Mohamed Salah stated that Warda should be given a second chance.
Last November, the public prosecutor dropped all charges against 15-year-old Amira Ahmed, who confessed to killing a bus driver while trying to rape her under a white weapon. This case was considered a victory for the right of women to self-defense, and it also contributed to changing the general perception of violence against women.
The New York Times writer considers that the heavy focus on Zaki opened a new front in the struggle for women's rights, but he spoke of complex social divisions and "strictly enforcing gender laws," referring to the issue of arresting girls presenting passages through the application of Tik Tok like student Haneen Husam.
In the words of activist Mazen Hassan, "It is about framing, as the authorities want to send a signal that there are good and bad women. And while they support the righteous if they are victims, they consider women the issue of Tik Tok as bad," according to the author of the article.