The outcry over the assaults led Egypt's new president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to visit one of the victims in hospital.
Egypt continued its campaign against sexual crime on Wednesday, handing down a series of lengthy jail terms for nine men convicted of assaulting and raping women during a mass rally to celebrate the election of the country's new president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.
Seven men were sentenced to life imprisonment and two others were jailed for 20 years for sexually assaulting several women during a rally in Tahrir Square on 8 June.
The incidents, one of which was captured on video and circulated widely, caused outrage both in Egypt and overseas, and forced the authorities – who have ignored the issue for years – to take a sterner line against harassment and rape.
Arrests soon followed, the first time any of the 250 sexual assaults documented in Tahrir since 2011 had resulted in a police investigation, and Sisi took the unprecedented step of visiting one of the victims in hospital.
The case is the culmination of several recent moves to tackle the problem of sexual crime. According to UN research, more than 99% of Egyptian women have been harrassed in the street, and activists say hundreds of protesters have been assaulted at demonstrations since the 2011 uprising.
The country's media and political elite had, however, rarely acknowledged the problem until the fallout from the celebrations of Sisi's inauguration. The issue dominated newspaper front pages all that week, and the government asked YouTube to remove footage of the most notorious assault.
Sisi told Egypt's top policemen to take a zero-tolerance approach to sexual crimes, an order that resulted in the arrest of several other men in separate incidents around the country. Officials announced plans to reward screenwriters who wrote the most female-friendly television shows. A TV anchor who mocked the victims was suspended.
Activists responded warmly to the convictions, but stressed that the government's approach to sexual violence needed to be systemic rather than piecemeal.
"It's definitely unprecedented," said Ebaa El-Tamami, a campaigner from Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, an Egyptian rights group. "It's a good first step, and it's important that a lot of noise is made around it so that people are aware that harsh sentences are being given to rapists.
But the thing we need to keep pushing is for state actions to be consistent. This shouldn't be used as a propaganda event where the state says 'ok, we've done this, now stop complaining.' They need to keep going."
In June, a coalition of activists called for a clear national strategy that would use multiple approaches to tackle sexual crime – ranging from rewriting legislation relating to rape, training police, improving education and better equipping hospitals to deal with victims.
"There are lots of promises that have been made by the government to deal with sexual harassment," said El-Tamami. "But a lot of it is rhetorical, and we don't know if it will be implemented."
theguardian
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