Here’s an L.A. Times article on sexual harassment in Egypt. It describes two other groping incidents in Tahrir Square around the same time as the Lara Logan “aggressive pinching” incident (still no named sources for any of it, anywhere), and both of the women were pinched. Pulling and ripping clothes is also common, but none of the assaults included rape (including Logan’s, let us remember, despite the manipulatively misleading CBS press release).
In the square, Doha Alzohairy, 33, was celebrating when a group of men abruptly closed around her. She is convinced they didn’t know one another. They kept their hands low and their faces blank. She tried not to panic.
“They all started to touch me and grab me and pinch me all over,” she said. “The arms came from everywhere. It was terrifying. I worried that if I fell on the ground, no one would see me. So I started to shout and punch and scream and swear. But I wanted people to hear me.
“It was so humiliating,” she said. “I looked like I was crazy. Finally a man grabbed me from behind. I struggled against him, but he said, ‘I will help.’ And he helped me escape.”
Is this crazed pinching an Arab thing, or peculiar to Egyptians?
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Here’s ABC’s Ashleigh Banfield’s take on it in the NY Post. Again with the pinching.
A lone woman going out in public is pretty much considered fair game in a Muslim country. Also in many parts of Europe where Muslims congregate.
Comment by Maria — February 23, 2011 @ 5:30 pm
It’s a Muslim thing. It’s a problem in most Muslim countries. In Egypt, rape and sexual assault of women are common.
Comment by no more mr nice guy — February 23, 2011 @ 6:09 pm
Yeah, but pinching? That’s weird.
Comment by stone — February 23, 2011 @ 10:05 pm
Pinching (or slapping) the ass of women was a common form of sexual harassment of women in offices more than twenty years ago. So it’s possible that it’s the same thing in Egypt now. And I remember that when I was in high-school at the end of the 1970s, a female teacher told us that in Arabic countries, Western female tourists were sexually harassed.
Comment by no more mr nice guy — February 24, 2011 @ 7:25 am