CAIRO, June 9, (Agencies): A mob of hundreds of men assaulted women holding a march demanding an end to sexual harassment Friday, with the attackers overwhelming the male guardians and groping and molesting several of the female marchers in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

From the ferocity of the assault, some of the victims said it appeared to have been an organized attempt to drive women out of demonstrations and trample on the pro-democracy protest movement.

The attack follows smaller scale assaults on women this week in Tahrir, the epicenter of the uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down last year. Thousands have been gathering in the square this week in protests over a variety of issues — mainly over worries that presidential elections this month will secure the continued rule by elements of Mubarak’s regime backed by the ruling military.

Earlier in the week, an Associated Press reporter witnessed around 200 men assault a woman who eventually fainted before men trying to help could reach her.

Friday’s march was called to demand an end to sexual assaults. Around 50 women participated, surrounded by a larger group of male supporters who joined to hands to form a protective ring around them. The protesters carried posters saying, “The people want to cut the hand of the sexual harasser,” and chanted, “The Egyptian girl says it loudly, harassment is barbaric.”

After the marchers entered a crowded corner of the square, a group of men waded into the women, heckling them and groping them. The male supporters tried to fend them off, and it turned into a melee involving a mob of hundreds.

The marchers tried to flee while the attackers chased them and male supporters tried to protect them. But the attackers persisted, cornering several women against a metal sidewalk railing, including an Associated Press reporter, shoving their hands down their clothes and trying to grab their bags. The male supporters fought back, swinging belts and fists and throwing water.

Eventually, the women were able to reach refuge in a nearby building with the mob still outside until they finally got out to safety.

“After what I saw and heard today. I am furious at so many things. Why beat a girl and strip her off? Why?” wrote Sally Zohney, one of the organizers of the event on Twitter.
Intentional

The persistence of the attack raised the belief of many that it was intentional, though who orchestrated it was unclear.

Mariam Abdel-Shahid, a 25 year-old cinema student who took part in the march, said “sexual harassment will only take us backward.”

“This is pressure on the woman to return home,” she said.

Ahmed Mansour, a 22 year-old male medical student who took part in the march, said there are “people here trying to abuse the large number of women protesters who feel safe and secure. Some people think it is targeted to make women hate coming here.”

“I am here to take a position and to object to this obscene act in society,” he said.

Assaults on women Tahrir have been a demoralizing turn for Egypt’s protest movement.

During the 18-day uprising against Mubarak last year, women say they briefly experienced a “new Egypt,” with none of the harassment that is common in Cairo’s streets taking place in Tahrir. Women participated in the anti-Mubarak uprising as leading activists, protesters, medics and even fighters to ward off attacks by security agents or affiliated thugs. They have continued the role during the frequent protests over the past 15 months against the military, which took power after Mubarak’s fall on Feb 11, 2011.

But women have also been targeted, both by mobs and by military and security forces in crackdowns, a practice commonly used by Mubarak security against protesters. Lara Logan, a US correspondent for CBS television, was sexually assaulted by a frenzied mob in Tahrir on the day Mubarak stepped down, when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians came to the square to celebrate.

In a defining image of the post-Mubarak state violence against women, troops dispersing a December protest in Tahrir were captured on video stripping a woman’s top off down to her blue bra and stomping with their boots on her chest, as other troops pulled her by the arms across the ground.

That incident prompted an unprecedented march by some 10,000 women through central Cairo in December demanding Egypt’s ruling military step down in a show of outrage.

In contrast, the small size of Friday’s march could reflect the vulnerability and insecurity many feel in the square, which was packed with thousands of mostly young men by nightfall Friday. Twenty rights groups signed on to support the stand and hundreds more vowed to take part, according to the Facebook page where organizers publicized the event, but only around 50 women participated.

Sexual harassment of women, including against those who wear the Islamic headscarf or even cover their face, is common in the streets of Cairo. A 2008 report by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights says two-thirds of women in Egypt experienced sexual harassment on a daily basis. A string of mass assaults on women in 2006 during the Muslim feast following the holy month of Ramadan prompted police to increase the number of patrols to combat it but legislation providing punishment was never passed.

After Friday’s attack, many were already calling for another, much larger stand in the square against such assaults.

Another participant in Friday’s march, Ahmed Hawary, said a close female friend of his was attacked by a mob of men in Tahrir Square in January. She was rushed off in an ambulance, which was the only way to get her out, he said. After suffering from a nervous breakdown, she left Cairo altogether to work elsewhere in Egypt.

“Women activists are at the core of the revolution,” Hawary said. “They are the courage of this movement. If you break them, you break the spirit of the revolution.”

Protest
Meanwhile, around 200 supporters of Hosni Mubarak began a protest on Saturday which they said would continue until the deposed Egyptian President is transferred from prison to hospital.
Security officials and media have reported a severe deterioration in the 84-year-old’s health since he was sentenced to life last week for his role in the killing of hundreds of protesters during last year’s popular uprising that toppled him.

“There are around 200 Mubarak’s supporters and lawyers in front of the Prisons Authority and we will not leave until Mubarak is transferred to either a military or private hospital,” said Mohamed Abdel Razek, one of Mubarak’s lawyers.

Abdel Razek said the general prosecutor had told him there was “no barrier” to his request to move Mubarak from the hospital wing of Cairo’s Tora prison but that the decision had to be taken by the Prisons Authority.

Last week, security sources said Mubarak was given artificial respiration five times in one day and doctors recommended he be moved to a military hospital or back to the medical facility he was in prior to his conviction.

State’s news agency MENA said on Saturday Mubarak - who was wheeled into court to attend his trial on a hospital bed - risked a stroke.

The acquittal of six of Mubarak’s top security officials angered those who say his old guard is still ruling from behind the scenes.

Some Egyptians had wanted Mubarak executed and the sentencing triggered days of nationwide protests demanding both a retrial and enforcement of a law, passed by parliament but not implemented, banning Mubarak-era officials from politics. The constitutional court will rule on the law’s validity on June 14.

A June 16-17 presidential run-off election will pit Mubarak’s last prime minister Ahmed Shafik against Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Mursi, the final step before the army, which took charge when Mubarak was toppled, formally hands over power by July 1.

In another report, Egypt will try again on Tuesday to set up an assembly to write a new constitution, the parliament speaker said on Saturday, after the previous such body was dissolved for failing to represent all interests following the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s government.

The make-up of the constitutional committee has been in deadlock since April after a court ordered a previous body dissolved for being dominated by Islamists and failing to fairly represent Egypt’s diverse society. Islamists control around 70 percent of parliament.

“We have invited the elected parliament members to a joint meeting at 11 am on Tuesday...to elect a 100-member assembly to prepare a new constitution for the state,” Parliamentary speaker Saad al-Katatni said.

“All the political parties and powers have agreed that a full balance and representation of all powers and interests will be taken into consideration while forming the assembly,” he added.

Katatni, who heads the parliamentary committee in charge of choosing the assembly’s members and belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, the biggest parliamentary party, had asked public institutes, courts, syndicates and religious bodies on Friday for their nominations for the new assembly.

The new constitution is expected to define the president’s powers and citizen rights. The delay in picking the panel has left Egypt in a constitutional vacuum one week before a final stage of a presidential vote on June 16-17.

Spiked
Meanwhile, Egypt’s state television has spiked an ad urging citizens to be wary of foreigners who could be spies in disguise, after critics accused the state broadcaster of stoking “xenophobia,” an official said Saturday.
“The ad was removed on Friday night because we were concerned that it was being misunderstood,” Ali Abderrahman, president of public channels Nile Drama and Nile cinema, told AFP.
The 40-second video shows a young man strolling into a cafe to chat with a group of young Egyptians who quickly open up to him.
As the man sits with the young men and women a voice off-screen is heard to say: “He will infiltrate your heart as if you’ve known him all your life.”
One woman in the group says: “In the metro I heard them plotting against the military,” while a young man complains about “rising prices” and a “transport crisis” in Egypt.
The disembodied voice then warns that the stranger is getting “important information free of charge.”
The visitor is seen listening closely to the Egyptians, nodding his head and saying “Really?” in English, before using his mobile to start texting an unknown party.
The ad fades out with a final warning from the unidentified voice: “You don’t know who he is or what he’s hiding. Watch what you say. Every word has a price. One word can save a nation.”
In another story, Egypt’s official news agency says state prosecutors have asked parliament’s permission to investigate an ultraconservative lawmaker who police say was caught “violating public decency” with a woman.
MENA reported Saturday that police questioned lawmaker Ali Wanees after stopping to investigate a parked vehicle on a desert highway on Thursday evening. In the car with him was a 23-year old woman wearing the full face veil.
The report says police say Wanees and the woman were engaged in indecent behavior in his vehicle. Authorities did not know he was a lawmaker and has parliamentary immunity.
In a video posted on his website, Wanees says the woman is his niece. He says he pulled the car over after she fell ill.
A sheik quoted on Wanees’ website says the police report is an attempt to defame Islamists ahead of presidential runoff elections.