I'd call them animals, but that'd be an insult to animals.

I used to think I'd like to visit Egypt one day.  Then something like this pops up and I rethink any future travel plans. 

“My roommates and I fell to the ground when they attacked us. The people pulled my pants off even as I yelled and tried to fight,” she continued.

She said that after the men pulled their pants off, they continued to grab and grobe the woman’s bodies. “It is disgusting. They put fingers up my ass,” she revealed.  Luckily, the women were somehow pulled from the violence by a man and a woman and taken to safety. She said she doesn’t recall exactly how she was saved from the violent attack.

What the bloody fuck?  

What kind of mental processes must go through the minds of these men when they decide it's perfectly okay to strip and sexually molest women in the middle of a public square without warning?  It's depraved and sickening and it goes without saying, absolutely wrong.  The world is watching the country after the people rose up to remove a corrupt power from their government, but it seems that corruption runs far deeper than in just the upper echleons of politics.  It's running rampant in the streets, amongst the people and poisoning the society itself.  It must be, if this is what's happening in the general population after the revolution.

Thankfully, people in Tahrir are speaking out and speaking against these assaults, calling for people to be exposed and brought to face their crimes.

Activists called the attacks on women completely “unacceptable” and must be exposed no matter what. They demanded an end to all violence toward women.
“What happened in Tahrir today has no justification and must be fully exposed even if it taints Tahrir!” wrote EgyptSecularist on Twitter.

However, some people close to the assaulted women don't seem to agree with these sentiments.  Heather, the young woman who came forward with the story of her assault above, was told by people not to share her story as it would "taint the image of the revolution".  I say, good for her and fuck her naysayers.  It has tainted the image of the revolution, but this is a good kind of taint.  If the mobs are made to at least face up to the nature of their crimes and see that the international stage won't allow this kind of behaviour, maybe it could steer them towards a more civilised movement.  However, this optimism is a little strained - the numbers and ingrained mentality involved is exceedingly great.  It will take so much more work and so many more women to come forward and shame the men who assault them, and for the population against this abuse to support them.

Though with the statistics involved, it's going to be a long fight.

According to studies conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Right (ECWR) in 2008, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women surveyed had experienced sexual harassment in Egypt.
Meanwhile, 62 percent of Egyptian men confessed to harassing women and 53 percent of Egyptian men faulted women for “bringing it on.”

Bringing it on?  I'd like to meet each of those men and bring it on.

Preferably with a sledgehammer.

(Article found on Butterflies and Wheels)